A Simple, Graceful Cover Drive

THINGS ARE CHANGING all the time and the new generation of top international batsmen are more unorthodox than the majority of the players of my era.

Recently, I was coaching some schoolchildren and a young boy asked: “Mahela, what was the secret to your mastering the cover drive?” I was immediately flattered, but the hard truth is that no player, no matter how good he is, can “master” a stroke. All we can do is prepare as best as possible and then execute the shot when the right delivery comes along.

The cover drive was one of my favourite strokes and that is not surprising because players from the sub-continent are often more comfortable on the front foot. Our technique is forged during our childhood and is invariably influenced by natural conditions. I loved to play off the front foot on Colombo’s slow pitches, while Sanga was more adept off the backfoot having been raised on the livelier hill-country pitches of Kandy.

The differences are even more obvious when you compare players from Asia and Australia. Australia’s best batsmen are traditionally ruthless with the cut and the pull, but Asia’s heavyweights plunder runs off their pads and are very adept at using their feet. The challenge for us all is to harness our strengths, while also improving our weak areas and adapting to conditions.

So then I told this boy that the only really important secret was: practice, practice, and then more practice.