Do our batters know that they can change their stance facing certain bowlers and conditions?
I know we like to limit our batters and techniques but this is literally an intelligence issue. I will use players facing Ollie robinson as he has the obvious plan he is going to initiate. Have an alternating seam nipping the ball preferably in to the batter when wanting to take a wicket.
What do you do to counter this? 1.make your stance more square 2. Straighten your bat face. 3 angle your bat toe to first slip. No4. Have good head movement post delivery to allow you to not face your bat perpendicular to the ball.
Unfortunately for our players Id say on shafique has the ability to do this most of the time and shan masood sometimes.
Now what does this mean?
Our players have to change their stances or else they will have to overcompensate.
Lets put our players to the test.
Azan Awais: we see pre delivery his stance is rather square but still could be more angled but I don't think that's the main issue here yes it could be better but still not the main issue to his dismissal. His bat is rather straight and almost vertically facing point. What this means is that he'll have to straighten his arms towards point and bend his bat to play a cross batted shot when a ball nips into him.
What happens first ball? He fails to extend far enough and uses his head instead and his bat still faces the wrong direction after the ball has deviated forcing him to play a 90° shot.
Saud Shakeel: the main takeaway is his stance before playing a shot is extremely square his bat is straight and his feet face point, despite this his trigger movement is to move his foot to the offside despite the fact his stance is already set up for him to do so when necessary , so for him he did not even have the time to even wrap his bat Infront of his leg , yes he got unlucky with the call but if this happening to you with a shorter ball it is rather evident that he can't be straight with that trigger movement his head is too stationary.
Shan masood: failed to get his head forward to flick the ball regarding the dismissal. Stuck in between the trap of point 4.
Yes the first 3 stance changes affect your effectiveness on the offside but this is a test match, if a ball is bad on the offside you'll be able to hit it anyways , similarly we see players who are able to stop balls on their stumps to develop a late cut when more angled, allowing you to find a a gateway if runs from wider balls.