Why do we have so many lefties now?

[the_realist]

When I was growing, we hardly had a left handed batsman in our team apart from Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque Moni. Look at our openers now, most of them are lefties, even our middle order batsmen too.

Is it the influence of Brian Lara, Saurav Ganguly and Saeed Anwar?

I mean in the 90s and 00s we witnessed these three sublime stroke-makers, whose batting was arguably more graceful than the likes of Rahul, Sachin and Ponting. I know our country used to be full of supporters of either Pakistan or India. Pakistan had Saeed Anwar, India had Saurav as openers. Could the support for the teams of these two countries led kids to mimicking these two openers?

[Kana-Baba]

You are right, in early years we had many right-handed batmen. The saga started like this -

Most Batsmen are right handed (RHB) --> So, to counter these in-flux of RHB, bring in leg spinner (rare to find ) or produce left-arm spinner (SLA) --> now as we have many SLAs, to counter these SLAs we need more left-handed batsmen.

[al-Sagar]

rafiq and enamul was bowlers who batted left hander..... but who was the first recognized left handed batsman in the team >>>

may be faisal hossain dickens ???

then majanrul rana also was in the scene but yet he was basically an bowling all rounder.

shahriar nafees may be the next one followed by shakib, tamim, mehrab jnr, junaid .......

in domiestics we had one Imran hamid khan partho .... also mustadir litu ...... two promising players but never made into the national team

[BD_TigerZ]

Tamim
Shadman islam
Imrul
Mominul
Shakib
Soumya
Abul
Sunny
Taskin
Mustafizur
Elias

[Equinox]

Originally Posted by the_realist
When I was growing, we hardly had a left handed batsman in our team apart from Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque Moni. Look at our openers now, most of them are lefties, even our middle order batsmen too.

Is it the influence of Brian Lara, Saurav Ganguly and Saeed Anwar?

I mean in the 90s and 00s we witnessed these three sublime stroke-makers, whose batting was arguably more graceful than the likes of Rahul, Sachin and Ponting. I know our country used to be full of supporters of either Pakistan or India. Pakistan had Saeed Anwar, India had Saurav as openers. Could the support for the teams of these two countries led kids to mimicking these two openers?

Is your batting hand something you choose?

[M.H.Rubel]

Originally Posted by Kana-Baba
You are right, in early years we had many right-handed batmen. The saga started like this -

Most Batsmen are right handed (RHB) --> So, to counter these in-flux of RHB, bring in leg spinner (rare to find ) or produce left-arm spinner (SLA) --> now as we have many SLAs, to counter these SLAs we need more left-handed batsmen.

Now lot of lest handed batsman? >> Lot of off spinners are going to be produced!!

[al-Sagar]

Originally Posted by M.H.Rubel
Now lot of lest handed batsman? >> Lot of off spinners are going to be produced!!

or china-man bowlers ... ...

[M.H.Rubel]

Originally Posted by the_realist
When I was growing, we hardly had a left handed batsman in our team apart from Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque Moni. Look at our openers now, most of them are lefties, even our middle order batsmen too.

Is it the influence of Brian Lara, Saurav Ganguly and Saeed Anwar?

I mean in the 90s and 00s we witnessed these three sublime stroke-makers, whose batting was arguably more graceful than the likes of Rahul, Sachin and Ponting. I know our country used to be full of supporters of either Pakistan or India. Pakistan had Saeed Anwar, India had Saurav as openers. Could the support for the teams of these two countries led kids to mimicking these two openers?

Most of the pace bowlers are right handed bowler and most are out swing bowlers. To battle against right handed out swing bowlers the left handed batsman were created. This is one of the important reason for so many left handed top order.

[al-Sagar]

Originally Posted by the_realist
When I was growing, we hardly had a left handed batsman in our team apart from Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque Moni. Look at our openers now, most of them are lefties, even our middle order batsmen too.

Is it the influence of Brian Lara, Saurav Ganguly and Saeed Anwar?

I mean in the 90s and 00s we witnessed these three sublime stroke-makers, whose batting was arguably more graceful than the likes of Rahul, Sachin and Ponting. I know our country used to be full of supporters of either Pakistan or India. Pakistan had Saeed Anwar, India had Saurav as openers. Could the support for the teams of these two countries led kids to mimicking these two openers?

some other teams also had some elegant lefties ....

NZ had mark greatbatch and later on Stephen flemming .....
Aus had Michael bevan, lehman, gilchrist, hayden, langer
Eng had mark butcher and trescothick
SA had Gary Kirsten
Sri lanka had Jayasuriya, sangakarra
Zimbabwe had andy flower
WI had chanderpaul, jimmy adams
Pak also had Aamir sohail

[the_realist]

Originally Posted by Equinox
Is your batting hand something you choose?

I think it can be when you are very young. I found myself capable of handling batting by both hands, only to be let down by my poor eyesight. If at a very young age, kids see players like Brian Lara, Saeed Anwar playing, they may try to imitate them, which means they'd pick the bat by their left hands.

[Donal C]

Not as much as us though, We've like 5 lefties.

[the_realist]

Originally Posted by Donal C
Not as much as us though, We've like 5 lefties.

Which country? Ireland?

[Tausif]

Originally Posted by BD_TigerZ
Tamim
Shadman islam
Imrul
Mominul
Shakib
Soumya
Abul
Sunny
Taskin
Mustafizur
Elias

+ Taijul

I was thinking the same as well that most of our top-order batsman in test are left-handed. Tamim, Imrul, Mominul, Shakib, Soumya. It's more balanced in the shorter formats.

[Razi]

The terms 'Right-Handed' Batsman and 'Left-Handed' Batsman is the biggest myth in cricket. IMO, there is nothing called right or left 'handed', because we grab the bat with both hands. They really should have come up with a better term, may be right-sided or left-sided batsman or something similar.

While batting, IMO your upper hand is more important and the bottom hand is used just to guide the bat to where you want to hit the shot, unless of course you're someone like a Dhoni. So, technically all the RHBs use their left hand as their prominent hand and for LHBs it's the other way round. Hence, it always amazes me whenever I think about the terms RHB and LHB.

On topic, as a kid I was a RHB but due to my fascination for LHBs and it being quite rare at that time I changed my stance and since them I'm a LHB. I do everything with right hand but trust me if you tell to bat as a RHB now I simply cannot, it actually feels very weird. So, I agree with the OP that it all comes down to personal preference and those legends really had some influence in our present generation cricketers!

[the_realist]

I didn't know Taskin and Abul bats left handed as I've never seen them bat. It's amazing that even the right handed pace bowlers are also left handed batters. I'm more than convinced about the influence of these legends on our cricket.

[NoName]

Man, I tried batting left-handed, it is extremely awkward and just doesn't feel 'right' not to mention the movement of my arms are not smooth at all.

Anyways, I remember a time when our top 4 batsmen consisted of Tamim Iqbal, Imrul Kayes, Junaid Siddiqui and Shahriar Nafees; all left handed

[Tigers_eye]

Originally Posted by the_realist
When I was growing, we hardly had a left handed batsman in our team apart from Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque Moni. Look at our openers now, most of them are lefties, even our middle order batsmen too.

Is it the influence of Brian Lara, Saurav Ganguly and Saeed Anwar?...

If there is any influence by anyone to bat or ball left handed then it is Mo Rafique. May be Shakib - Tamim. Most of these kids didn't see Anwar. Saw a shell of Ganguly and Lara if any. Nothing to emulate. They saw more of Tendu, Kohli.

Batting with left hand bottom comes naturally to these kids. One can't force them to switch stands. They are not De Villiers.

[Saifulsohel]

In U19 group, we hAve
Pinak
Nazmul
Zakir
Shaif Uddin (bowls right hAnded)

[Rubu]

Originally Posted by al-Sagar
rafiq and enamul was bowlers who batted left hander..... but who was the first recognized left handed batsman in the team >>>

may be faisal hossain dickens ???

then majanrul rana also was in the scene but yet he was basically an bowling all rounder.

shahriar nafees may be the next one followed by shakib, tamim, mehrab jnr, junaid .......

in domiestics we had one Imran hamid khan partho .... also mustadir litu ...... two promising players but never made into the national team

Yes, faisal hossain was the first leftie batsman in the team. If I remember correctly, it was clearly stated by a selector at some point that, they wanted a left handed bat on the line up and hence Faisal was selected.

[Saifulsohel]

Originally Posted by the_realist
When I was growing, we hardly had a left handed batsman in our team apart from Mohammad Rafique and Enamul Haque Moni. Look at our openers now, most of them are lefties, even our middle order batsmen too.

Is it the influence of Brian Lara, Saurav Ganguly and Saeed Anwar?

I mean in the 90s and 00s we witnessed these three sublime stroke-makers, whose batting was arguably more graceful than the likes of Rahul, Sachin and Ponting. I know our country used to be full of supporters of either Pakistan or India. Pakistan had Saeed Anwar, India had Saurav as openers. Could the support for the teams of these two countries led kids to mimicking these two openers?

Former player Roqibul Hasan snr. told that he believes there was a time Muslim parents wanted their children to be right handed. Now the customs became relaxed. Hence left handers are visible.

[MHRAM]

Originally Posted by Razi
The terms 'Right-Handed' Batsman and 'Left-Handed' Batsman is the biggest myth in cricket. IMO, there is nothing called right or left 'handed', because we grab the bat with both hands. They really should have come up with a better term, may be right-sided or left-sided batsman or something similar.

While batting, IMO your upper hand is more important and the bottom hand is used just to guide the bat to where you want to hit the shot, unless of course you're someone like a Dhoni. So, technically all the RHBs use their left hand as their prominent hand and for LHBs it's the other way round. Hence, it always amazes me whenever I think about the terms RHB and LHB.

On topic, as a kid I was a RHB but due to my fascination for LHBs and it being quite rare at that time I changed my stance and since them I'm a LHB. I do everything with right hand but trust me if you tell to bat as a RHB now I simply cannot, it actually feels very weird. So, I agree with the OP that it all comes down to personal preference and those legends really had some influence in our present generation cricketers!

Upper hand is more of your power hand. Upper hand gives you power into the shot, while bottom hand gives you control. Now, ofcourse there is no denying that you need control more importantly than power. Hence righties usually bat right handed and lefties like that. although the likes of Tamim, Imrul are not left handed. Right handed people who learned to bat left handed from young age and now are adept at it.

[RazabQ]

There is now a new school of coaching which recommends your dominant hand should be the top hand. Michael Clarke, Shaun Marsh, Chris Gayle are all right handed. They were coached to be left sided batsmen so that they'd have power and control on their top hand. To that end, I've got my middle son (7.5yrs), who's a predominant leftie, be taught to bat right-sided. His drives and cuts are now really starting to click. Me personally, when I started cricket, I wanted to be like Imran Khan. Even though I'm a leftie and bowl left-arm, I forced myself to be right-handed. From 7th grade to O-levels I always batted right-handed and was decent. Then a light bulb went on and I said, why am I not using by god-given leftiness. So in the break between O's and A-level classes, I worked on becoming a left-sided batter. Many years later, I'm now a predominantly left-handed batsmen, but on tennis-ball cricket can actually still switch and bat the other way. Going by the baseball example, I think the whole left-hand, right-hand batter distinction is only going to get blurrier with time. As it is, batters like Warner and Pieterson could do quite well by flipping their batting sides.

On topic - I do believe it's just a weird coincidence. West Indies, a few years ago had all lefties too.

[mufi_02]

I feel like the bottom hand is the dominant or power hand. As a right hander, when I hit a ball hard, I get most of the power from the right hand. The left hand is more for control and direction of the bat. Few times for fun I switched to left hand but I can't hit it far at all.

Maybe I did it all wrong over all these years. I hit like Tamim/Mushy but ball goes like Riyad

off topic - razab bhai er shathe ekta match khelte parle bhalo lagto. I played with Alfurqaan. The guy is build like Umesh Yadav but bowls like Farhad Reza and hit him out of the park quite a few times

[RazabQ]

why am I not suprised at Asaad's lack of pace. His venom is apparently only evident on the cyber-world If you are ever in the bay area, look me up - definitely game on. I have 4 players available at all time

[Nafi]

People on this thread saying upper hand is the power hand have no idea what theyre talking about.

How do you hold a bow if you're right handed?

You hold the bow in your left (the steady control) but you pull the string with your right, (the power)

Your bottom hand is your strong hand, and is the power. The top hand guides and steadies the bat.