Australia star David Warner is one of the best players in the world of the switch hit – that is a batsman changes his grip, and reverses his stance, going from a right-handed batsman to a left-handed one, or vice-versa.
A batsman played the switch hit mostly to hit his opposing match-up spinners in the direction of the turn on the ball from the spinner, and sometimes also to access the shorter boundary.
Throughout his career, David Warner has played the switch hit to success to off-spinners – that is he takes his position as a left-hander, but when the off-spinner is in his delivery stride, he changes his grip and reverses his stance to become a right-hander and hit on the legside now, which was earlier his off-side.
The left-handed Aussie opener has played switch hits to India’s R Ashwin on a few occasions in the past. But on Sunday in Indore, in the 2nd IND vs AUS ODI, Warner did something that surprised everyone, but not really his Aussie teammates.
When Ashwin came on to bowl, to attack with turn to Ashwin’s off-spinning deliveries, Warner decided to bat right-handed! This plan worked well for David Warner initially as he cracked Ashwin for a boundary as a right-hander.
However, R Ashwin has made a career outfoxing the best batters in the world. Ashwin immediately produced his carrom ball – which goes straight and even turns away from a right-hander. The Aussie opener then went even more audacious as he tried to reverse hit from being a right-hander to a left-hander. However, he didn’t connect and got out lbw (though in hindsight, Warner had edged it, but he didn’t realize it and didn’t opt for a review).
David Warner plays golf right-handed, we see how dynamic he is: Abbott
In the press conference later on, Australia pace-bowling all-rounder Sean Abbott was asked about this little tussle between Warner and Ashwin.
Abbott cheekily said that Warner plays golf right-handed and practices reverse and switch hits in the nets, so it wasn’t all surprising to the Aussies that he decided to bat right-handed. Abbott also praised Ashwin for his clever variations.
“I think if Davey’s just going to sit there and bat left-handed, Ashwin is not going to miss his length too often. With the ball spinning so much, he’s got the one that goes the other way, the straighter one, and all the variations along with that. Davey just thought he had to change it up.”
“He plays golf right-handed, we see how dynamic he is with his switch-hitting and stuff, so he weighed up those options,” he added. “He’s done it before, he practices it in the nets, so it was like ‘oh this is different’, but Davey’s Davey, so we just let him crack on,” Abbott said.
