Welcome Guest Sign In | Register | Login Search Cricinfo Popular: ICC Rankings | Peter George | Mohammad Irfan Cricinfo Magazine Sanj ay Manjrekar Feeds | Archives Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar is a cricket comm entator and presenter on TV retweet retweet 54 Comments: 84 | Login via | Text size: A | A Enlarge Related Links Players/Officials: Dinesh Karthik | Virat Kohli | Rohit Sharma Teams: India The pull i s not the only way t o score off a short delivery © Cameraworx/Live Images I believe that you can have the worst technique in the world, but if you have a sharp, disciplined mind you can still s urvive at the international level. Technique, though , does become very important, at times, li ke in Damb ulla recently, where the ball didn't behave as predictably as it does elsewhere nowadays. The short ball is something In dian batsmen are generally, and naturally, not too good against. I used to envy young Australian batsmen during my playing days. A bouncer was a scoring opportunity for them. The moment s omebody bowled short, they pounced on it. It's like when an Indian batsman sees a spinner bowl short. For Indian batsmen against bouncers, their first instinct is not positive. Then we s ort of tell ourselves that we are going to be aggressive. In the nineties Ind ia started to l ook at Australia as the team to be. The kids in that era grew up idolising Australian batsmen. Perhaps that's why a lot of them are playing the pull shot today, to make a statement, even if it doesn't c ome naturally to them. For the Australians the pull shot is l ike the drive or the flick is for the Indians. There is a notion that in limited-overs cricket if you don't pull, you give the bowlers free dot-balls. And you can't keep ducking either. That's w hat the young Indian batsmen often say. Suresh Raina showed he played the short ball better in Tests, when he wasn't under press ure to score fast. In limited-overs cricket, though, they start pulling , but unconvincingl y, thereby making it a high-risk shot. Sachin Tendulkar doesn't play the pull anymore. Nor does Virender S ehwag. VVS Laxman doesn't play it as often as he used to. They are all still effective batsmen at the international level. You d on't always need to always play the pull shot to prove something to someone. Why play a high-risk s hot at a time w hen you don't want to lose wickets? You don't need to hit a boundary every time the ball is bowled short. I remember w hen they bowled short to Sunil Gavaskar in limited-overs matches in Australia, he would glide it to third man for a si ngle. And then the bowler had a different batsman to adjust to. How does Tendulkar take care of short balls in Twenty20? H e does not play aggressive shots; he just takes singles to fine leg or taps it over where slips would be. More importantly , he shows he is comfortable against the short ball. That is the key. If someone is bowling short in limited-overs cricket, he is not going to do so right through the innings. It 's j ust a matter of maybe two overs. And it is i mpossible to keep bowling short in Twenty20. How many pitc hes wil l allow you to do that? At any rate, India's main problem is not that they are stuck for long periods without scoring runs. Their problem is that they are losing wickets. It's not like they are three down for 180 in 50 overs. Fast bowlers keep bowling short at a batsman only when they see he is uncomfortable against it. What happens with a Raina or a Ravindra Jadeja is that they show they are uncomfortable. If Raina, even in Twenty20, ducks un der one, and guides the next one for a single to fine leg, and shows he is comfortable, he won't get much more of it. It will only happen if it's cl ear to them that he is getting into strange positions The problems w ith In dia' s young batsmen Some pull to make a stat ement , one pushes mee kly. 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