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Most Stylish Batsman Of The Modern Era: Which Player Plays Each Shot Best – Tendulkar’s Drive, Ponting’s Pull, Lara…?

Aug 11, 2020 | World XIs - With Twists

Who do you think is the most stylish batsman of the century? Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting, or the Fab 5?

Let’s have some fun today. Instead of just picking 11 today, we will pick an entire squad of 15 members with 7 reserves, similar to the guidelines for the COVID-19 bio-security bubble age.

Today’s Twist – Most Stylish Batsman:

Pick a squad of 22 members, where each player plays the best of a certain shot. The constraint is that you can only pick 1 player per shot. Who would you pick for the best cover drive, the best square cut, etc.? Note, we only pick players from the past 25 years for the current iteration.*

The Catch:

Babar Azam vs Virat Kohli was all over twitter this past week, but who do you think plays the best cover drive? For someone like Sachin Tendulkar who has all the shots in the game, if you were to only pick one, which shot would it be?

Almost all shots are linked next to a video, so have fun watching some of our favorite shots!

Straight Drives

  1. Straight Drive (Ground): Sachin Tendulkar
  2. Straight Drive (Aerial) : Martin Guptill
  3. Dancing Down Straight Six: Sourav Ganguly

Cover Drives

4. Steady Cover Drive: Babar Azam

5. Lefty Cover Drive: Kumar Sangakkara

6. Expansive Cover Drive: Jacques Kallis

Pulls/Flicks

7. Pull Shot: Ricky Ponting

8. Flick: Virat Kohli

9. Square Cut: Rahul Dravid

Unorthodox Shots

10. Dilscoop: Tillakaratne Dilshan

11. McDilscoop: Brendon McCullum

12. Reverse Sweep: Kevin Pietersen

13. Reverse Scoop (Aerial): AB De Villiers

14. Helicopter Shot: MS Dhoni (for more on MS Dhoni, check this out)

15. Just Pick Any Shot: Brian Lara (The Winner)

I mean which shot would you have given Brian Lara, probably the most stylish batsman of this era?

Reserves

16. Lefty Cover Drive (Aerial): Soumya Sarkar

17. Dab to Third Man: Kane Williamson

18. Single Off the Hip: Alastair Cook

19. Lefty Leg Aerial Hoick: Adam Gilchrist

20. Wristy Flick/Pull: VVS Laxman

21. Reverse Reverse Sweep: Eoin Morgan

22. The Leave/Weird Stuff: Steven Smith

Which players would you pick? Which is your favorite video?

Who is the most stylish batsman in your opinion? Comment below with some of your favorite videos, share, and don’t forget to subscribe!

Well, that is it for right now. Stay tuned for more coming up later this week!

Sources: Youtube (Videos), cricket.com.au

*The article has been edited to only include the players of the recent past for the current iteration. We will do a sequel to this article considering players from earlier eras in our future iterations.

Image courtesy of Pete Souza / Public domain

Nitesh Mathur

5 Comments

  1. JustCricket

    Nice fun article. My Favorite player is Rahul Dravid and yes, love his square cuts. I have written cricket articles as well, the latest being Umpires or Robots. Please comment on what your opinion is and follow if you enjoy it. Thanks

    Reply
    • Kiran

      Rahul dravid

      Reply
      • Clive

        I wonder if any of these writing has ever seen clips of Lawrence Rowe. The most elegant stroke player ever.

      • Nit-X

        Great point!

        I would probably need to do another article for pre-1990s. Feel free to post your favorite Lawrence Rowe or your other favorite videos!

  2. Anonymous

    Kl Rahul 6 over extra cover drive
    And flick six over square leg

    Reply

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