Signature Shots Of Top Players

August 07, 2021

Watching our favorite players playing their signature shots is delight to watch. Some players play some specific shots to such a perfection that those specific shots are known by their name.

Signature Shots Of Top Players

Straight Drive:

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar: The Little Master almost always hit the ball with a little effort with a 'classic' straight bat. There were just a few sights better in cricket than his 'straight drive. ' No cricketer, past or present, has played the shot better than the Mumbai batting maestro.

Helicopter Shot :

Mahendra Singh Dhoni:The shot got its name and fame through M. S. Dhoni, who played on a regular basis as a way to score boundaries against full and yorker length deliveries. It was a fellow player Santosh Lal, a childhood friend of Dhoni, who taught him how to play the shot.

Pull Shot

Rohit Sharma: Currently no batsman hits more sixes on the pull than Sharma. From the start of 2015, he has struck 116 sixes playing the pull shot across formats in international cricket. Overall, Sharma has played the pull shot against 570 deliveries which is about a six every fifth ball. The batsman with the second most sixes off the pull shot - Eoin Morgan with 47 - has not even hit half as many as Sharma.

Ricky Ponting: Absolute beauty to watch him play pull shot. When watching Ricky Ponting play the pull shot, it's always very obvious that his initial movement before the ball is bowled will be to come forwards, get in to a semi-crouched position, and then once he notices the ball is short, he will explode backwards off the front foot to play pull.

Flick shot

Virat Kohli: Virat Kohli is technically one of the most complete batsman in cricket at the moment. As he has mentioned himself, his ODI shots are just an extension of his Test match shots.

One of the best proofs of that is his flick shot over mid wicket. The way Virat holds his shape after playing that shot just makes it a sight to behold.

It makes a beautiful sound off the bat and the ease with which it is played is enough to fizzle out the confidence out of any bowler.

VVS Laxman: His wrist had magic. He would just flicked his wrist and ball used to run away to the mid wicket region. His pure class is depicted by this shot.

Cover Drive and Off drive

Sourav Ganguly: Consequently, cover driving was indeed a natural shot for which Dada hadn't needed to premeditate. “On the offside, first there is God, then Sourav Ganguly,” said Rahul Dravid. Especially the magnificent cover drives that he produced against the world-class bowlers had its own fan base.

Upper cut

Virender Sehwag is one such batsman who is known to pulverise any bowling attack on his given day and one shot which he seldom plays which yields him most number of runs is the upper cut. Though the execution is a bit different from Sachin’s, it is as effective. The slash over the point region has been the most productive area of scoring for Sehwag but it has also brought about his downfall.

The six off Waqar Younis in the 2003 World Cup was just out of the ordinary. With one hand out of the handle, he still managed to slash it over the point region for a monstrous six. Throughout his career, this shot has got better and better and he had also helped the ball over the slip cordon for a six on numerous occasions.

Leg glance

Ranjitsinhi

The noted cricket writer Neville Cardus once described Ranjitsinhji as "the Midsummer night's dream of cricket". Perhaps the first great of Indian cricket, the ruler of Nawanagar revolutionised the game and invented the glance off the pads, or as we know it now, the "leg glance".

Conventional sweep

Mushfiqur Rahim : Now this might be surprising but Mushfiqur Rahim has always been a thorn in the flesh for the spinners with his cheeky footwork. He has eternally displayed an exquisite range of shots, both off front & back foot. Since his rise to stardom sweeping Indian spinners in the 2007 debacle, he has invariably displayed his affection for orthodox sweep & slog-sweep specifically. Though playing the sweep has been his nemesis against the spinners, but playing his favorite shot is a gamble he will always take.

Reverse Sweep

Glenn Maxwell and AB Devillers : They both require no introduction they are innovate players who play these type of shots to counter attack the opponent bowlers.

Switch hit

Kevin Peterson: The first player to play the shot, Kevin Pietersen doesn't seem to care about who is bowling to him. His quick changes in the handle of the bat and posture, from being a right-handed batsman to a left-handed batsman catches the opposition teams off-guard on most occasions and sometimes even the bowler finds it hard to hide his bewildered look after watching the 34-year-old play the shot.