Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Against the newer ball and the faster bowlers you need to get back or forward early and transfer your weight into your shots as you play them; you just need to time the ball and it flies. He's often too slow going back and ends up defending from the neutral position a lot as a result which can make him lose control and end up defending/jabbing away from his body when the ball moves. This is compounded with what is a generally pretty poor (by elite standards obv) off-stump judgement from him as well. Furthermore, when he goes onto the front foot he doesn't really transfer weight into his shots even when his footwork is correct and early, so they don't have the power of most others, making it look like he isn't timing his shots down the ground.
Against spin it's a lot more about reading the length out of the hand and placing your shots which he's pretty good at, and even against quicks with the older ball there's less movement and carry so the fact that he defends away from his body on the back foot isn't as much of a problem. As such, he should be fine at four against this attack on this pitch.
They're all pretty subtle things and I don't think he's really going to average 30+ more batting one position lower long-term, but I do think he's a natural five or six and would benefit from playing there more. The fact that the top three failing has coincided with Clarke batting four throughout his career really hasn't helped either though; he's be in early pretty regularly in both his two stints there.
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