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Ganguly learns from a pair of old masters

By G. Viswanath

CANBERRA, JAN. 28. As a good student of the game, Sourav Ganguly is still learning the art of batting. Though he opted to sit out the match against the Australian Prime Minister's XI, he utilised an hour's time to enhance his knowledge and backfoot play against the short ball from two stalwarts of Don Bradman's 1948 `Invincibles' — the stylish Neil Robert Harvey and Sam John Everett Loxton.

Ganguly had the opportunity to meet Harvey at the dinner hosted by the Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday night. "Sourav has asked me to help him out. He told me please come and see me at the nets. I will be at the nets with him at 11.30 a.m.,'' said Harvey in the course of an interview to The Hindu.

But it was only after Ganguly had finished lunch with John Howard, Steve Waugh and over a hundred guests, that Harvey, accompanied by Loxton, walked to the outdoor nets at the Manuka Oval and a little later Ganguly and L. Balaji joined the two Australians. Soon V.V.S. Laxman also showed interest and interacted with Harvey and Loxton.

Harvey spoke to Ganguly in a soft tone and politely. Loxton appeared to be quite agitated. The old man did nothing to offend Ganguly though; it was just that Loxton became so intense and passionate about the session that lasted for an hour. "It's for the first time you have played side on in your life'', remarked Loxton once. He was equally big-hearted, saying: "There you are. You are learning. We cannot fix it (backfoot movement) in such a short time. You have to practise for hours and hours. You have been doing certain things for 15 years.''

Harvey was a left-handed batsman and was able to explain two initial (backfoot) movements and drive home the point to Ganguly. He pointed out faults and demonstrated it to Ganguly. Harvey said he had been taught to make one short initial movement of the back leg and then again take the back leg farther and closer to the stumps. "By doing this you are always side-on and you get plenty of time to see the ball and play it or move inside the line if the ball is a bouncer.''

The way Harvey and Loxton learned the skills might not have been different from the way young cricketers are taught around the world today, but the sequence of faulting Ganguly's forward movement after the initial backward movement, explaining how he gets cramped and jumps back and offering the remedy was carried out in a straight and simple manner.

Loxton asked Harvey to repeatedly demonstrate the first and second movement of the back leg towards the stumps. Thereafter he asked Balaji to stop bowling and told Ganguly to visualise as if the bowler was coming to bowl at him and go through the two-step backfoot movement. Ganguly got it right many times.

After the coaching session was completed Harvey told Ganguly: "I see you are beginning to make use of the crease. It will help you in the long run boy.''

Loxton, who said Ray Lindwall would have had Ganguly four times in an over, was thrilled to see the Indian captain going right back on his backfoot to a short ball. "You see you are getting it right. Aaaah....that's the way. Once you are positioned like that and side-on, you get all the time in the world to see the ball and hit it. And don't be afraid to see where you are. You will be happy to see that you were right behind the crease.''

While Loxton was explaining backfoot play and its advantages, Laxman was picking Harvey's brains standing behind the nets. "We don't do it that way,'' Harvey replied when told by Laxman how he had been taught to play overpitched balls and short balls.

In the meanwhile pointing to Ganguly's footwork, Loxton asked; "How are you going to play shots on the on side''. Then he asked Harvey to demonstrate how he used to do it.

Ganguly has scored thousands of runs in Test and one-day cricket. But unlike many cricketers he is not ashamed to seek help in order to sort out certain aspects of his technique.

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