World of Cricket informations: Various cricket shots

VARIOUS CRICKET SHOTS

1 Batsman's Shots

The different types of shots a batsman can play are described by names:

Block:: A defensive shot played with the bat vertical and angled down at the front, intended to stop the ball and drop it down quickly on to the pitch in front of the batsman.

Drive:: An offensive shot played with the bat sweeping down through the vertical. The ball travels swiftly along the ground in front of the striker. A drive can be an on drive, straight drive, off drive, or cover drive, depending in which direction it goes.

Cut:: A shot played with the bat close to horizontal, which hits the ball somewhere in the arc between cover and gully.

Edge, or Glance:: A shot played off the bat at a glancing angle, through the slips area.

Leg Glance:: A shot played at a glancing angle behind the legs, so that it goes in the direction of fine leg.

Pull:: A horizontal bat shot which pulls the ball around the batsman into the square leg area.

Sweep:: Like a pull shot, except played with the backmost knee on the ground, so as to hit balls which bounce low.

Hook:: Like a pull shot, but played to a bouncer and intended to hit the ball high in the air over square leg - hopefully for six runs.

French Cut:: An attempt at a cut shot which hits the bottom edge of the bat and goes into the area behind square leg.

Reverse Sweep:: A sweep with the bat reversed, into the point area.

Most of these shots can also be lofted, in an attempt to hit the ball over the close fielders (or the boundary). The batting strokes can be divided into two categories: Straight bat and cross bat. The straight bat shots are played with the bat held close to the vertical, and are the blocks, drives and glances. Cross bat shots are played with the bat held more horizontally, like a baseball bat. These include cuts, pulls, sweeps and hooks.

The following terms are used more informally and are not standard:

Hoik:: A wild swing intended only to hit the ball as hard and as far as possible, usually with little or no control.
Agricultural Shot:: Any shot played with very little skill.

FEW MORE SHOTS

Cover-drive: This is hit on the offside not with power but with sheer excellence, so this shot requires a lot of practice.
Straight drive : This shot is also somewhat like the Cover drive but it is hit straight back to the bowler. It can be hit either in the air or on the ground.
Leg glance: This shot is hit on the leg side with some medium power but most of the power has to come from the wrist because we have to twist our wrist while playing this shot.
Pull shot: This requires the movement of the hips and a lot of power and this can send the ball far in the air towards the leg side with a horizontal bat.
Cut shot: This shot hits the ball to the off side with a horizontal bat.
Defense: This is not a shot it is just a touch because we don't really use this shot for hitting it is just for staying at the crease. You have to look at the ball carefully and then block it from hitting the wickets.
Forward Defense: this shot has to be played by taking a long step forward, the batsman should block the ball with a forward defensive shot.
Backward Defense: This shot has to be played by moving back on your back leg and waiting for the ball and then pushing the ball down on the ground.