Soft Skills!

Anyone who watches cricket with more than a passing interest would be aware of the term ‘soft hands’ employed by the commentators. This term is, at present, associated with the batsmen and I expect it to be extended to bowlers in the future. Soft fingers would be more apt then, wouldn’t it?

Dravid is a fine exponent in the use of soft hands. Domestic competitions in India are played on matting wickets or on rank-turners that the batsmen eventually become masters of front-foot play. The same cannot be said of the back-foot. How can you expect that when the bouncers barely rise above the navel? Soft hands are vital to prolong your stay at the wicket. The wicket-keeper and the slips place themselves in relation to the bowler’s pace. The batsmen negate this carry by using soft hands which ensures that the ball lands short. This is perfectly understandable in case of front-foot play. But how do soft hands affect back-foot play? It has to do with the behaviour of the ball after impact. Imagine this scenario: you throw a ball against a big sponge and against the wall. The sponge absorbs the ball’s kinetic energy while the wall does not have any influence on it. If anything, the wall might increase it, very marginally. The same happens in cricket. Here, the bat held with soft hands acts as a sponge and that held with hard hands acts as a wall. The ball could balloon to the nearest fielder when defending a bouncer with hard hands. The bat should be left loose and hanging to absorb the ball’s energy thereby making it ‘drop dead’. The important aspect here is to rise above the ball’s bounce though. The ball has to hit the bat, and not your gloves. 

All of us are not fond of reading explanations, right? If all this matter-of-fact stuff flowed right across your brain, never mind. Just play the following video and notice his bottom-hand closely during shot-making.

I did mention 'Soft fingers'. If you had tried bowling, you would have experience with this idea. The ball when held hard in your hands at the time of delivery hampers your release-point and your release-time. You will end up pitching it halfway and if the surface is fast and bouncy, you might just get away with it. I wouldn't say the same for any other surface. You will get pulled and cut quite often! With soft handling, these errors could be corrected. Handle it too soft and you will be gifting the batsman an easy-to-score-off full-toss, or you could even hurt him!

I developed this concept and though I have no proof, I have personal experience. If you think of this concept as being flawed, I would very much like an explanation to this effect in the comment section.