Winning a crucial game is never an easy thing to do. No matter the sport, talent and ability alone cannot help a team or a player to shine under pressure. Pressure can either bring out the best or the worst out of a person, and it does not have to be the same way all the time. The way a player handles pressure is one of the things that make him/her great in what they do, because not all players handle it efficiently.
With that being said, the reason behind this post is to talk about the two types of batsmen who are vital for a teams victory in a do or die game. The reason I say ‘batsmen’ is because this post is from the batting perspective alone. Maybe someday I’ll write about a bowlers role as well, but for now, let’s move on with the current topic. In my opinion, a team needs two types of batsmen in their armor : 1)The anchor and 2) The hard-hitting finisher. Let’s talk about the anchor role. Whenever a team is under immense pressure, irrespective of whether they are batting first or chasing, they need one or two of their players to play the anchoring innings. The literal meaning of ‘anchor’ is something that holds the ship steady at a certain place. Similarly, you need batsmen who can stay rock-solid on the pitch and steady the ship- which is the whole batting unit I’m talkin about. The role of these batsmen is to keep the score board ticking and not allow the bowlers to feel confident at any circumstance. If they can spend some time in the middle and not give the bowlers any chance to settle in, it can automatically put pressure on the bowler, and in a do or die game, all this is just added pressure. The best dot ball that a bowler can bowl is a wicket taking ball. A dot ball is not something that gives the bowler a high dose of confidence, a wicket is. Nothing can give more confidence for a bowler than taking wickets and making the batsmen uncomfortable. In order to break that confidence, the batsman has to be like an unshakeable wall in the middle. Though highly underestimated in this era, a rock solid defense is something that can play mind games with the bowler. It makes the bowler think that it is too easy for you and try different ways to attack you and somehow induce the error, and if the phase is prolonged, it means that the bowler can overthink his way into committing unwanted errors. A few bad balls is all it takes for a game to change upside down. For instance, let’s talk about New Zealand’s victory over England in the Icc wt20 semifinals, NZ needed 57 runs from 24 balls with a required run rate of 14.25; at this moment, it seemed like England had the upper hand in the game, but all it took was a few bad deliveries by Chris Jordan, and Jimmy Neesham capitalised on the oppurtunity and changed the game around and Nz went on to win the game. (Neesham scored 27 runs in 11 balls, hitting 3 sixes and 1 four). That is why putting pressure on the bowler is very important, and that’s the role of an anchor. A great example of one such innings was Gautam Gambhir’s 97(122). Very early in that match, Lasith Malinga had taken the big wickets of Sehwag and Tendulkar, and the team was under immense pressure. In such a situation, the team needed a player who can play the anchor role and turn the momentum away from the Lankan Lions. On that night that player was Gambhir. Right about the time when they were about to sink, he came in and steadied the ship. With a few more wickets the Sr Lankans could have wrapped up the game easily, but He stood there and dragged the game longer and longer. Those are the kind of players we need to win a crucial match. Players who have intense focus on the game and not worry about the wickets falling at the other end and continue to play their natural game. Those type of players are born for these clutch situations and those are the one who can win the big tournaments for the team.
The second type of player is the hard-hitting finisher. The job of the finisher is to change the pace of the game and carry the team to the finish line. The situation is like this, the anchor throws the alley-oop, and the finisher dunks it. A batsman who can rotate the strike from one end and a batsman who can attack the opposition from the other end form a deadly combination. I have never seen a successful team without great finishers. You need batsmen who can make the most of the last few overs of an innings, you need players who can hit those massive sixes and the cheeky boundaries. As I said earlier, a few bad balls can do the damage in a t20 game, and a few overs can do it in an Odi game, so the team needs players who can make the most of those bad overs. In the earlier example, I was talking about the 2011 world cup final in Mumbai, a game in which Gautam Gambhir played the anchor role. Let’s take the same game as an example, and this time, let’s talk about the importance of a finisher. After Gambhir and Kohli were out, India needed someone to get some quick runs and change the tempo of the game, and much to everyone’s surprise, MS Dhoni walked into the middle. He then went on to play one of the most iconic innings of all time, an innings which helped him stamp his authority as one of the greatest finishers the game has ever seen. He hit 8 fours and 2 sixes, ten very important strikes considering the situation of the game at the moment, accumulating 91* runs in just 79 balls. The most impressive thing about Dhoni’s innings is the way he stepped up in the biggest stage of them all and never let pressure overtake him at any situation. It’s unbelievable to know that a player who had been in poor form with the bat throughout the tournament and was suddenly promoted up the order in a final game can gather up the courage to perform at the level that he did. Truly sensational! Let’s not forget about Yuvraj Singh’s handy innings of 21*(24) from the other end. These are the best examples of what a finisher is supposed to do.
This is why a team needs these two types of batsmen. The anchor steadies the ship, the finisher steers it home.
