What is "technique"?

It is obvious that players today play differently from the way players
played 50 or 100 years ago. Indeed, it would be very surprising if
they didn't: sport develops because players come up with ways of doing
things which give them better reward than doing them the way they did
before.

The primary way of developing "technique" is training by repetition,
facing lots of similar balls and getting used to the sequence of
movements necessary to achieve a desired result. Whatever your view of
"range hitting" where the aim is to hit sixes off everything, there is
no doubt that it is technical training.

Today's players have practiced far more different shots than those of
the past. It almost certainly follows that they have practiced any
given shot less than those whose range was more limited practiced it
(or some other shot if it's a non-traditional one), and one can
reasonably estimate that their error rates will be higher.

It is plausible that the result of that would be increased
vulnerability to excellent bowling but more efficient dispatch of good
to poor bowling. This is what we observe in today's cricket, although
I'm well aware that I have not proved a necessary connection between
premises and conclusion.

It is relatively simple to analyse a current player's technique and
observe how it differs from the techniques employed by IVAR Richards,
G Boycott, RM Cowper or PBH May.

What I don't see how to do is offer some relative value judgment that
JE Root, Babar Azam or M Labuschagne's techniques are "better" or
"worse" than their predecessors'.

How can one separate quality of technique from what results the
technique achieves? A few minutes of thought gives me no real clue on
how it can be rationally done. Maybe someone else can offer a sensible
idea.

Cheers,

Mike

On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 5:53:00 PM UTC+1, Mike Holmans wrote:
> What is "technique"?

Something of which you are completely ignorant. Batting technique varies according to a place in the order, openers are more circumspect and middle order batsmen more aggressive. But Whatever the place in the batting order the rules of batting are the same, stand still at the crease, play the ball as late as possible , keep your bat strait and restrict yourself to playing balls which you are confident in playing, for example, if you can hook but can't keep the ball down cut out the hook.. RH

On Tuesday, 20 September 2022 at 19:06:59 UTC+1, anywh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 5:53:00 PM UTC+1, Mike Holmans wrote:
> > What is "technique"?
>
> Something of which you are completely ignorant. Batting technique varies according to a place in the order, openers are more circumspect and middle order batsmen more aggressive. But Whatever the place in the batting order the rules of batting are the same, stand still at the crease, play the ball as late as possible , keep your bat strait and restrict yourself to playing balls which you are confident in playing, for example, if you can hook but can't keep the ball down cut out the hook.. RH

What you are entirely ignorant of is the article after the introduction. It is clear that you didn't read another word after that. You haven't given any relevant input to "what is technique" but you did begin by insulting someone and then you go on to explain nothing about what technique actually is.. You do explain that attitudes, abilities and confident levels may differ and I'm sure any four year old could easily understand and then ignore you.

On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 7:32:57 PM UTC+1, Najeeb ybo wrote:
> On Tuesday, 20 September 2022 at 19:06:59 UTC+1, anywh...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 5:53:00 PM UTC+1, Mike Holmans wrote:
> > > What is "technique"?
> >
> > Something of which you are completely ignorant. Batting technique varies according to a place in the order, openers are more circumspect and middle order batsmen more aggressive. But Whatever the place in the batting order the rules of batting are the same, stand still at the crease, play the ball as late as possible , keep your bat strait and restrict yourself to playing balls which you are confident in playing, for example, if you can hook but can't keep the ball down cut out the hook.. RH
> What you are entirely ignorant of is the article after the introduction. It is clear that you didn't read another word after that. You haven't given any relevant input to "what is technique" but you did begin by insulting someone and then you go on to explain nothing about what technique actually is.

I suggest you read my response again. . If giving rules for batsmen isn't does not come under the heading of technique nothing does. RH

You do explain that attitudes, abilities and confident levels may differ and I'm sure any four year old could easily understand and then ignore you.

Oh dear, Mr Hypocrite you are engaging in abuse . In my judgement of master unwholesome I I was speaking no mrore that the unvarnished truth., RH

On Tuesday, 20 September 2022 at 20:07:40 UTC+1, anywh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 7:32:57 PM UTC+1, Najeeb ybo wrote:
> > On Tuesday, 20 September 2022 at 19:06:59 UTC+1, anywh...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 5:53:00 PM UTC+1, Mike Holmans wrote:
> > > > What is "technique"?
> > >
> > > Something of which you are completely ignorant. Batting technique varies according to a place in the order, openers are more circumspect and middle order batsmen more aggressive. But Whatever the place in the batting order the rules of batting are the same, stand still at the crease, play the ball as late as possible , keep your bat strait and restrict yourself to playing balls which you are confident in playing, for example, if you can hook but can't keep the ball down cut out the hook.. RH

> > What you are entirely ignorant of is the article after the introduction.. It is clear that you didn't read another word after that. You haven't given any relevant input to "what is technique" but you did begin by insulting someone and then you go on to explain nothing about what technique actually is.

> I suggest you read my response again. . If giving rules for batsmen isn't does not come under the heading of technique nothing does. RH

>> You do explain that attitudes, abilities and confident levels may differ and I'm sure any four year old could easily understand and then ignore you..

> Oh dear, Mr Hypocrite you are engaging in abuse . In my judgement of master unwholesome I I was speaking no mrore that the unvarnished truth., RH

I'll try to me you feel insulted and abused more politely if you are so sensitive. How does giving rules to a batsman come under the heading of technique? The rules that you expressed could be easily understood by a four year old and then disregarded. You haven't gave any indication of what technique actually is apart from what you think it should be and that is very cloudy to say the least.
I'll help you out with one of your technical tips. "keep your bat strait and restrict yourself to playing balls which you are confident in playing"[sic]. A straight bat is admirable for certain shots and necessary for many more, regardless of whether a batsman is confident with the shot required or not. I would have said
"restrict yourself to playing balls which you have to play or ones that can be easily scored from". The problem you seem to have understanding the hook shot is that the hook should be intended to go all the way for six runs. When we are taught to play the pull shot we are taught to play from high to low to keep the ball down.
Your ignorance of what technique means is highlighted in that you think a hook shot should be played on the ground. The batsman for that along the ground shot would probably need to be around 7+ feet tall.

On Wednesday, September 21, 2022 at 2:53:00 AM UTC+10, Mike Holmans wrote:
> What I don't see how to do is offer some relative value judgment that
> JE Root, Babar Azam or M Labuschagne's techniques are "better" or
> "worse" than their predecessors'.
>
> How can one separate quality of technique from what results the
> technique achieves? A few minutes of thought gives me no real clue on
> how it can be rationally done. Maybe someone else can offer a sensible
> idea.

This is just another way of asking the "how do we compare eras?" question.
It's not easy.
Too much changes.
Equipment improves eg super bats.
Rules/Laws vary eg DRS.
Peers change eg there are no Warnies right now.

There are a few ways to compare eras;
1. overlapping eras eg PlayerA played for 20 years, and PlayerB also played in the last 5 of those. Some comparison can be made.
2. assume all factors besides technique are equal (for a batsman's peers), the work out how much better a batsman is compared to their peers. Best example of this is Bradman, and why he's considered the best batsman ever - he stood out above his peers more than anyone ever. Whereas Tendulkar, say, didn't stand out so much.
3. skip objective judgements and just go with subjective. Not quite rational, though.

Also, some long term trends might be observable. For example, it might be shown that today teams aren't very good at batting out an entire day 5 to draw a Test (totally made up by me). One could then argue that that part of their technique isn't as good as, say, the 1950s (again, made up). But that doesn't help rate a technique *overall*.

On Wednesday, September 21, 2022 at 4:51:42 PM UTC+10, FBInCIAnNSATerroristSlayer wrote:

My point is factors like that can be pretty much ignored.
Bradman's peers played with the same factors, yet they didn't perform anywhere near as good as Bradman.

Plenty of good arguments can be made about Tendulkar's peers being better than Tendulkar eg Kallis.
(FWIW, I don't agree with them, but there IS debate to be had).