Re: God help me
Reply #35 –
Yes, it's a great skill and good coaching, just a sway forward or backwards and you are out of harms way.
Before you know it things will click and she'll be putting them over the fence!
Years ago we would train the kids by having them wear a helmet, then underarm cricket balls at their head and have them head the pill away to the off or leg. It isn't harmful, and it develops timing and skill to deal with short stuff calmly, I've seen Kohli do the very same in a test match.
Here is the truth about short pitched bowling, but it assumes the pitch isn't dodgy which is a different issue of dangerous playing conditions. If I stood you or any other cricketer up at the stumps in the absence of a wicket keeper or batsmen, and asked the worlds fastest bowler to throw down a short pitched delivery at you. You can catch it, every time, it may sting the fingers but you can catch it, even if you get the world's fastest baseball pitcher to throw the pill at you from 20m away you can catch it, you'll get your hands on it 10 out of 10 and do so comfortably! The proof of this is in every quick single run out attempt when the fielder unleashes an on the run panicked red hot power throw to the bowlers end from half the pitch length away! Bowlers nearly always get hands on it, they might drop it often, but they just never cold miss it unless they think it might be a direct hit!
My associates and I have argued for some time that batsmen should be able to defend themselves with a gloved hand off the bat, still risking being caught off the gloves but not to be dismissed for handling the ball. It's a sensible application of the rules, you would find a lot of test level batsmen catching the pill in front of their face rather than being hit in the head! Let the umpires adjudicate what is a defensive action versus interference. If they palm the pill onto the wickets they are still out, but do not penalise them for successfully defending their head, and let the bowlers bowl short still as a tactic!