Ben Duckett: Reverse sweeping, counterattacking England's Bazball hero who's misunderstood by Indian fans
England opener Ben Duckett came up with three reverse-sweep boundaries off left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja to jump from 86 to 102. The final one, that took him past 100, was to a fastish full Jadeja ball. It was a difficult shot that only someone with strong wrists would have been able to carve out of the pitch and axe hard enough that it beats the deep-point field.
Had the Indians employed some expert cricket sleuths, in case they exist, to do a thorough background check of Duckett, the batsman, they wouldn't have employed the leg-side heavy '6-2' field to him. Duckett can't be kept quiet by packing the leg-side field and bowling him on his feet. He would still manage to play on the off-side. Duckett as a school boy played a lot of field hockey, along with cricket. And as expected he would mix the two sports. Like in hockey, he would use the reverse-sweep in cricket too. Legend has it that once, in a college game, he went from 100 to 150 by just playing reverse sweeps.
His batting coach James Knott from his school days at Stowe school had told this newspaper about the origin of that reverse sweep. 'Ben played hockey and rugby, as well as cricket from a young age at Winchester House Prep School and then throughout his time at Stowe. In hockey, he was a great exponent of reverse hitting the ball and could already play the reverse sweep and switch hit when he arrived at Stowe. We worked more on the orthodox sweep and the paddle sweep which he didn't play as much,' the coach had told The Indian Express.
It is this quirkiness, along with the expected audacity and unorthodoxy, that makes Duckett the perfect opener for Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes' England. A batsman born to play Bazball, the brand of aggressive and entertaining brand of cricket that England play under McCullum. In Zak Crawley, another non-traditional opener with out-of-the-box choices of strokes, Duckett has an opening partner that makes them appear like peas from the same pod. Both were born in Kent and as coincidences go, in the same hospital, their birth four years apart. Crawley too opted to reverse sweep Jadeja in the spinner's first over of the day.
Duckett and Crawley can spoil the best of time-tested plans of rivals. It was they who forced India to come up with Plan B and make skipper Shubman think on his feet. India would have hoped that Jadeja would be the bowler who would plug the flow of runs from one end, while Bumrah would strike from the other. Perfect plan on an overcast day with a developing rough for him when there was a big total to defend. What could go wrong?
A lot, it turns out, when Duckett was ready to take his chances even against Bumrah. Duckett gave a hint about the talk in England's dressing room about scoring 350, and chasing down 371, on an overcast day. The Indian pace spearhead had a spring in his step and was hitting the right line but Duckett, on the third ball of the day, climbed on his feet and got over the ball, punching it to covers for four. Most openers would have left the ball, but Duckett isn't an everyday batsman. Two balls later, Bumrah came up with his trademark wicket-taking delivery that came in but moved away dangerously late. It narrowly missed the edge. Little did anyone at Headingley know that this was going to be a teaser to the rest of the game. There was more of the same through the day – near misses and attacking shots.
It's this fearlessness and his range of conventional strokes on the off-side that make Duckett dangerous. Staying in the crease, not reaching for the ball, he cuts the ball comfortably but judging the length of the ball very early. Against Bumrah, aware that driving would be risky, Duckett would stay back and try to play the ball square on the off-side.
Once in a while he would drill it through the point region for a boundary too. Against Prasidh Krishna, in the first session, he would be more adventurous. He repeatedly dismissed his short ball to the mid-wicket boundary and the full balls were hit through covers. In the second session, India would get two wickets but that didn't stop Duckett from keeping scoring briskly. Now even Bumrah was being pulled and driven. This would make the Indian fans in the stands, edgy.
Duckett has an unpleasant relationship with many Indian cricket fans, so much so that he even quit social media because of them. It's mostly been because they haven't quite understood his humour or intent. In 2019, when asked on twitter to 'complete the sentence, Virat Kohli is ….?' Duckett had pinged in 'a joke'? Suggesting Kohli's batting is that good, but several people on twitter took it literally, and went after him.
This March, they were at him again for his comments on Bumrah. 'I've faced him in a five-Test series before,' he told Daily Mail. 'I know what he's going to do to me, and the good thing about that is I know what skills he has. There's going to be nothing that surprises me. It's going to be challenging. But if I can get through that opening spell, I feel there are runs to be had.' Fair statements, it is something that he exactly did today. But his 'nothing that surprises me' was seen as a mock, and he was trolled. Fed up with the toxicity, he quit twitter for a while.
Around these parts it is said Duckett needs to be taken out early or else he gets confident and outrageously aggressive. The evidence was there when he was on 137 and faced Jadeja. Out of the blue, he clobbered him for a reverse-swept six.
Duckett's mother Jayne, who represented Britain in lacrosse, is also aware that once her son is settled he can pull off anything.
'I have seen a lot of Ben and he is very nervous until he has 30 runs.' She also narrates a charming story about the time she went to watch her son bat. 'He is popular with the public but in one T20 match a guy behind me said, 'He's not going to last long — he will be out to one of his reverse-sweeps.' I turned around and told him that's my son he was talking,' she told The Times.
At Headingley, he didn't get out reverse sweeping but he did spoon an innocuous Shardul Thakur to short cover. But by then, he had done his bit to set the platform for a famous England win.
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