Let's talk cover drives

[Sir Alex]

I like to subscribe to Ian Chappel's theory. It doesnt matter how you get runs as long as you get them. Aesthicity is fine but I prefer hard runs to looking good. Yuvraj Singh has one of the best cover drives and on drives in the game currently but it means nothing. Cover drives are also played mostly off long hops and overpitched deliveries and essentially is not one of the toughest shots to essay. I think the most difficult shots to play are the front foot pull (Ponting!), the paddle sweep (Tendulkar), the on-drive (Tendulkar).

 

[DingDong]

I like to subscribe to Ian Chappel's theory. It doesnt matter how you get runs as long as you get them. Aesthicity is fine but I prefer hard runs to looking good. Yuvraj Singh has one of the best cover drives and on drives in the game currently but it means nothing. Cover drives are also played mostly off long hops and overpitched deliveries and essentially is not one of the toughest shots to essay. I think the most difficult shots to play are the front foot pull (Ponting!), the paddle sweep (Tendulkar), the on-drive (Tendulkar).

Dilscoop is pretty hard too ok.

 

[NUFAN]

I agree with Zaremba's call for Greg Blewett.

 

[Sir Alex]

Dilscoop is pretty hard too ok.

Dilscoop is actually Marillier's invention. Plenty of batsmen have played it and is a freak shot. Dilshan himself has come croppers attemtping it.

 

[bagapath]

hey bagapath can u pls post a link to this hammand fellow's cover drive pls?

will look for it mate. i found it last year through one of the links from a CW thread discussing some vintage black and white footage. hammond looked too majestic for words.

 

[archie mac]

If I could go back in time it would be to watch Hammond

But from the ones I had the pleasure to watch Kim Hughes was the best, down on one knee through the covers, if you can find a video of him, it would be well worth watching

 

[NasserFan207]

I always really liked Hussain's cover drive for some reason. Would never call it the most effective cover drive, but it had a certain appeal. He had this imperious way of hitting it.

 

[0RI0N]

I like to subscribe to Ian Chappel's theory. It doesnt matter how you get runs as long as you get them. Aesthicity is fine but I prefer hard runs to looking good. Yuvraj Singh has one of the best cover drives and on drives in the game currently but it means nothing. Cover drives are also played mostly off long hops and overpitched deliveries and essentially is not one of the toughest shots to essay. I think the most difficult shots to play are the front foot pull (Ponting!), the paddle sweep (Tendulkar), the on-drive (Tendulkar).

thanks for missing the point of the thread,good job.
@bagapath Wally Hammond was by all accounts a majestic cover driver.My favourite English player ever.Interesting character.
Buried in Kloof KZN South Africa.
Bradman
*
Hammond
*
Sobers
*
The rest can form an orderly line.

 

[zaremba]

I like to subscribe to Ian Chappel's theory. It doesnt matter how you get runs as long as you get them. Aesthicity is fine but I prefer hard runs to looking good. Yuvraj Singh has one of the best cover drives and on drives in the game currently but it means nothing. Cover drives are also played mostly off long hops and overpitched deliveries and essentially is not one of the toughest shots to essay. I think the most difficult shots to play are the front foot pull (Ponting!), the paddle sweep (Tendulkar), the on-drive (Tendulkar).

Yeah, my favourite cover-drive is the paddle sweep.

 

[NasserFan207]

By cover drives we don't necessarily mean half-volleys. Anyone can hit those. Its when you see a player drive a length ball outside the off stump, on the up while using perfect placement and control that you truly appreciate the cover drive.

 

[zaremba]

Correct. Even weirder was the suggestion that large numbers of cover drives are played off long hops.

 

[NasserFan207]

Maybe in kiddie cricket.

 

[Sir Alex]

Yeah, my favourite cover-drive is the paddle sweep.

 

[Richard]

I prefer the paddle sweep. Poetry in motion if executed well.

Really? I'm not much of a fan, partly on the basis that it's so often a premeditated shot and I hate any form of premeditation - like to see the ball played on merit. Disrespectful to the bowler to premeditate in my book, though clearly the batsman's principal job is to score runs and if disrespecting the bowler is neccessary to do that then he must do so.

Of sweeps I much prefer the firm slap through square-leg than the fine paddle.

 

[Richard]

I'll admit there are few better shots to watch than the cover drive, but aesthetics is over-rated. Give me an "ugly" batsman who gets runs and toughs it out over an aesthetically pleasing underachiever.

Not sure aesthetics is overrated TBH - everyone recognises that it plays no part in how good a batsman is. How good a batsman is to watch and how good he is at scoring runs are entirely different things, and deserve separate appreciation.

The idea behind this thread is appreciating those who look good. Most threads tend to be about who is good at batting (because it's a far more extensive discussion; what constitutes good-looking batting tends to be much more widely agreed on), so it's nice to have a bit of a change every now and then.

 

[Richard]

Robin Smith's square cut

Haha - Robin Smith's square cut was ****ing brutal.

Cut and cover-drive being the two shots whose aesthetic attraction is so vastly different. The best cover-drives are caressed without even appearing to hit the ball; the best cuts are those that are just smashed with the batsman giving the withering appearance of "wasn't a good idea bowling there at me was it?"

Robin Smith did that about as well as I think it's possible to do.

 

[Richard]

If I could go back in time it would be to watch Hammond

The batsman I've always wished above all that behind-the-bowler filming techniques had been invented earlier for.

His cover-drive is the stuff of legend but the only angles on it (that I've ever found anyway) are old-fashioned side-on ones. So it's not possible to offer a true comparison to the masters of the TV age of the 1960s and onwards.

 

[fredfertang]

It is difficult to see beyond Hammond's cover drive (ie the image I posted earlier in the thread but omitted to explain) but there's something about a class batsman hooking a class fast bowler off his eyebrows that makes that, IMO, the most thrilling shot in the game

 

[Lillian Thomson]

One of the best innings for the cover drive and square cut you could wish to see was Gordon Greenidge's double century on the last day at Lords in 1984. Admittedly he was fed an ample diet of half volleys and long ops (if he cover drove a long hop I must have been in the bar at the time) by the England attack.

 

[honestbharani]

Carl Hooper made it look so ridiculously easy... So did Mark Waugh and VVS but Carl was ahead of them for mine... So many to name, really.. Sachin, Lara, Ponting all play gorgeous looking cover drives.. And with left handers, even the worst of them can pull off cover drives that can look a million bucks... Seen some picture perfect ones from blokes like Herath and even Panesar now and then.


But the most recent one that stands out in my memory would be Murali Vijay off Herath. He hardly seemed to have pushed at it and it went on between short cover, extra cover and mid off at a speed that Afridi would have marvelled at...