Cricket is a bat and ball game and requires specific skills in both bowling and batting. You will find many different types of shots in cricket, whether in defense or attacking style. So if you want to play cricket properly or score more and more runs during the matches, you should practice your batting skills regularly.
There are many types of cricket bats and balls available in the market, and you can choose according to your need and where you are going to play cricket.
If you are looking to learn more about names and skills used in the different types of batting in cricket shots, you can look in the section given below to get all you need.
The Cover Drive
This shot requires placing your bat in front of the ball, turning it over so that the backside faces where the ball was pitched, and swinging down on top of it with plenty of power to make contact with your bottom hand, striking before your top hand pushes it through.
This is known as a bottom-handed drive; the top hand is used for guidance. This shot can be played offside or down the gap between fielders. It’s important not to swing down too hard on this one, or you run the risk of hitting it straight up in the air and into the hands of fielders.
The Straight Drive
This shot requires placing your bat in front of the ball and turning it over so that your bottom hand strikes before your top hand pushes it through. It is played like a cover drive, but you aim for the point instead of the cover. You should hit the ball without deviation while trying to go past the wicketkeeper and over the bowler’s head.
Pull Shot
A pull shot is a cricket stroke that is executed by swinging back on your bat so that it ends up behind you. This typically lets you pull bowlers’ deliveries such as short-pitched balls or bouncers away from you for runs. The shot can also be executed by swinging the bat in front of you to allow you to pull bowlers’ deliveries.
This back-and-fierce-swinging shot is used as an aggressive counterstroke to stonewall a batsman on the front foot, but this stroke can also be used by a batsman who is on the back foot and looking to score quickly runs.
In cricket, when a bowler delivers a ball that you cannot fit through the line of your stumps, it is known as an “unplayable ball”.
Flick Shot
Flick shots are usually played by batsmen who are deep in their crease or playing hard push shots with full face or half face slants towards the bowler’s end of the pitch. It is a shot played by the batsman in which he flicks his wrists to clear the boundary or fine leg boundary beyond the square and fine leg.
It is usually played as a counter shot defensively to a ball aimed at the leg stump that has been slid down the leg side by bowling marksman, especially those who slide it without spin.
Offside Drive
The offside drive is the most common shot played by the batsman. It is played in between the bowler and mid-off or cover fielders.
The shot variation depends on the ball’s pace, where a fast bowler would need a long stance, and a soft pace will call for less time to prepare for impact. Therefore, the ball is played with an open stance but must be closed at impact to ensure a clear contact with the center of the bat’s face.
Legside Drives
There are two types of leg-side drives. They are; on-drive and round-arm drive. The on-drive is the most common shot used by a batsman.
It is played above the leg stump with the leg side of the bat. The round arm drive is played by turning your back foot to the leg side of the ground and hitting it into the leg side with a round arm action while keeping one’s front foot knee on the ground.
Glance/Sweep
A glance or sweep is a way of scoring runs by advancing beyond the off stump, missing it, and then falling over fielding team’s fielders or chasing down any loose ball that might come their way. It involves making contact with the ball with only one part of the bat-head, i.e. the bottom edge of the bat.
Learning all these kinds of shots helps the batsman improve their cricket career performance.