In the cricket coaching schools, batting stance is one of the first things which are taught to people aiming to shape their career as a batsman. The pundits and fans can say a lot about a player just by looking at their batting stance and it tells a lot about their technique. Since the advent of cricket, a traditional batting stance is being followed where the players remain close chested and reveal as minimal of their body to the bowlers as possible.
However, there are anomalies in nature and cricket has produced an abundance of batsman who justified these exceptions. Several batsmen played with batting stance that can be termed as weird if nothing else and many succeded in their career as well. Let us take a look at all-time XI of batsman who played with a weird batting stance and engraved their names in all-time greats.
Rory Burns
The Englishmen keep his head extremely still and in line with the stumps while hanging the bat in the air longer than what is ideally recommended. However, his unusual stance hasn’t impacted his batting in a negative way and Burns remains one of the most promising opening batsmen in the cricketing circuit.
In an interview, Burns revealed that he keeps the peculiar stance as he wants to see most of the ball through his left eye.
George Bailey
George Bailey is known for experimenting with his batting stance. However, one particular batting stance left the entire cricketing community in splits. In one of the games against Pakistan, Bailey kept almost his entire back towards the bowler while almost facing the wicket-keeper.
Steve Smith
The former Australian skipper is arguably the best red-ball batsman at the moment. However, what makes his success peculiar is his batting stance. His stance is something every cricket coach would advise not to follow but Smith has certainly found some success with it. He keeps a considerable distance between his feet and plays with an extremely high backlift. What makes it even more strange is the extravagant amount of shuffling he does before playing a ball.
Kevin Pietersen
The Englishmen had a very weird batting stance. The explosive batsman would keep his feet wide apart on the crease and play with an extremely high backlift. His stance made him a master on backfoot and allowed him to discover a few creative shots as well.
Shivnaraine Chanderpaul
The Caribbean batsman probably had one of the most peculiar-looking batting stances. He stood on the wicket with his chest facing the bowler and his bat kept between his spread-out feet. Chanderpaul’s stance had all the qualities of failure but he ended up as the highest run-scorer for the West Indies side.
MS Dhoni
Mahendra Singh Dhoni does not have a weird stance but it is something that will not be advised by most of the coaches. He played with an extremely high backlift and had an open chested stance. His stance made him an extremely useful player against the short balls but left with vulnerable against the swinging deliveries.
Lance Klusener
Lance Klusener is one of the pioneers of explosive batting. The exceptional all-rounder has a baseball-style stance where his bat went as high as to his shoulder. His extremely high backlift made him one of the first pinch hitter in cricket.
Shaun Pollock
Shaun Pollock followed Lance Klusener in the South African batting order and donned a similar stance as of Klusener. He also played with an extremely high backlift and clobbered the bowl as the pinch hitter in baseball.
Harbhajan Singh
Harbhajan Singh was known for his lusty blows. The off-spinner was a useful addition for his skipper at number eight. However, his stance was weird, to say the least. Harbhajan batted with a half chested stance which implies that his part of his chest faced the bowler. He used to keep the bat between his feet which were spread out.
Curtly Ambrose
Curtly Ambrose was one of the most feared pacers of the ’90s which often makes fan forget his terrible batting stance. The legendary bowler played with an open chested stance and with his bat mid-air. The stance didn’t allow him to play either the short balls or full-length deliveries.
Saqlain Mushtaq
Similar to Ambrose, Mushtaq wasn’t known for his batting which makes people forgive him for his devastating batting stance. The player took guard at the middle stump which made his leg stump visible. The off-spinner left his bat mid-air which made it almost impossible for him to play any shot.
