Holding a bat properly provides the foundation for a great batting technique. Even if you change your batting grip slightly, it may affect your batting style and the playability in the directions like off-side, or leg-side. While playing any shots, you must be totally in control of any of the effective ways to hold the cricket bat. Following are the four main types of batting grips, you must have a look at while playing shots.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Effective Ways To Hold Cricket Bat
- Conventional V-Grip
- Closed Face Grip
- Open Face Grip
- Don Bradman’s Grip
Bottomline
EFFECTIVE WAYS TO HOLD CRICKET BAT
1) CONVENTIONAL V-GRIP
Conventional V-Grip is the most common and the easiest method to hold the bat effectively. If you are a newbie, then you must go with this holding style. This position allows you to play your shots through any side of the wicket. In this grip, you must take care that the bottom hand should be kept ethically loose, which will allow you to play your favourite shots comfortably. The conventional v-grip will let you assist with the solid batting technique without any extra effort.
2) CLOSED FACE GRIP
If you are quite defensive while playing on the offside, and usually prefer playing your shots on the leg side, then the closed-face grip is for you. If you master this technique of holding the bat effectively, it will make you comfortable delivering shots through the leg side. Since closed face grip is not a natural way of holding the bat, it is often not recommended by the coaches or experienced professionals. Still, you can develop this skill by regularly playing in the same way. Here, you have to hold your bottom hand in the grip forcefully.
3) OPEN FACE GRIP
Open face grip is not among the usual ways to hold a cricket bat, rather it is adopted by the batsmen at some certain time in the match to score more runs. This style of grip is useful for accelerating yourself for playing big shots even if the ball gets pitched in the hard-to-play regions. With the open-face grip, you can comfortably hit the full deliveries powerfully square of the wicket on the off-side. Moreover, you must take care of the fact that you cannot play with this grip all the time. The reason behind this is that it severely harms your playability through the leg side.
4) DON BRADMAN’S GRIP
This one from the ways to hold a cricket bat effectively is the same way of gripping which the Don of Cricket, Don Bradman used to play with. The biggest flex you will experience playing with this bat is that you will automatically become able to roll your wrists as you make contact with the ball while dealing with cross-batted shots, such as a hook or the square cut. The Don Bradman’s Grip also makes it easier for you to play shots through the leg-side.
BOTTOMLINE
While batting or playing shots, you can’t grip the bat randomly. Therefore, in order to play better cricket, you must adopt any of the above four effective ways to hold a cricket bat.
