On taking stride:
Question: Desmond, we heard Geoffrey Boycott a lot on TV and this is
actually not on Mickey tape because he was an outstanding player and
an outstanding coach of batting. And he always talks about the big
stride. Well that seems very difficult to me, when I coached young
people myself, to have them in a back position to make a big stride
forward seems awkward. If you look at players like Majid Khan, Sunil
Gavaskar, Barry Richards, I would say that weight transfers forms the
more important part in their movements, back & forth.
Haynes: Ya! Mark I must agree with you, I think that if you got to
look to especially with playing against someone who is very quick and
you want to use both ends of the crease, you are going back and you
want to cover the off-stump, it's going to very hard for you to get
that front-foot so far down the wicket.
But I think , it's something that I learned a lot from Gordon
Greenidge because when I first met Gordon that is opened the batting
with Gordon, I was amazed to see Gordon Greenidge playing forward to
Jeff Thomson because I found that was impossible, my theory was that I
am going to play back to him and when he bowls full I am going to give
it a hit, so I was like this.
And Gordon would say well, it's not there means it is there, I got to
learn that. Then I went to play the World Series cricket and Dennis
Lillee gave me two short balls and pitched one full, I am on my
backfoot, out LBW.
So I went to the nets, I practiced, getting the weight, as you are
talking about the weight transfers and I start going here with the
intention to say that I am going to come out & get out
And you know, you might not get going far out but you can still be in
a position from where you can get the bat out even if you are far
enough from the wicket or not.
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