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Left handed cricket batsmen

Anything Left-Handed Famous Left-Handers, Sport
Famous Left-Handers Sport

England selected a pair of left-handed opening batsmen in the first Ashes Test against Australia in Brisbane recently. Lefthanders Andrew Strauss (left!) and Alastair Cook (below) had an opening partnership of 188 runs and both scored centuries in an impresive England innings.

Left handed batsmen have a certain advantages in cricket: As with most lefthanders, their right-brain to left-side wiring gives them enhanced spatial awareness and the ability the think and react quickly to objects in 3-dimensions - quite useful when a 5.5oz (155g) cricket ball with a hard leather cover is hurtling towards you at nearly 100 mph and you are supposed to hit it!

The other advantage is that they are unusual in hitting the ball from the other side of their body and that changes the way the bowler and fielders have to play. The bowler has to change the angle of attack and sometimes changes to bowling from the other side of the wicket and the field has to be completely reversed as the batsman will be hitting the ball in different directions (e.g. the "slips" that are behind the bat to catch any edges all have to change sides).

When there a left-handed and right-handed batsman playing at the same time, the fielders have a lot of walking around to do to keep moving to the most effective positions.

Follow Up


Here is a suggested list of the top 10 left-handed cricket batsmen of all time (with thanks to CricketFreakz)

  • Sir Garry Sobers (West Indies)

  • David Gower (England)

  • Clive Lloyd (West Indies)

  • Neil Harvey (Australia)

  • Brian Lara (West Indies)

  • Allen Border (Australia)

  • Saeed Anwar (Pakistan)

  • Mathew Hayden (Australia)

  • Adam Gilchrist (Australia)

  • Saurav Ganguly (India)


What do you think?

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Comments 11

  1. deepak
    don,t feel sorry that being a left hand batsman
  2. Sathish
    And Sourav Ganguly is probably the Best left handed ODI batsman amongst them ! STATS NEVER LIE !
  3. Suresh Mandiya
    Souran Ganguly The Legend of Indian Cricket <3 Love U Dada
  4. Haulman
    Graeme Pollock is better than them except lara & sobers
  5. mufaddal
    same here
  6. Tracey McLellan
    I too do almost everything with my left hand except two-handed batting. I feel its more to do with being left-eyed. I.e. most two-handed sports require side on stance and I'll swap hand preference to keep my left profile forward even if it means the bottom hand is now the right one.
  7. claudia
    I think this is hysterical since I don't have a clue how to play cricket. But I played softball and I still play golf and tennis and everything is definitely better from the left side (forehand in tennis). I think they just confused you guys somewhere along the way and told you, you should be right handed.....But then some people really are good from both sides. They are supposed to be the very best athletes.
  8. Les
    Dear All,
    Iam very interested in the cricket item,
    I am a right sided person, right arm and leg but I am left handed batsman and left handed golfer .Iam 73 years old and played golf for 43 years and have analysed left handed golfers and I have never found one that is a left sided person,Can you please give me an explernation.
    I have just been onto net to ask for a left handed golf intruction book .
    I thought I had found one (On the other hand by Steve Anderson ).The book is very good and informitive, but the auther states that all lefthanded golfers are left sided people ..The two best left handed golfers in the world are Michelson and Mike Weir and they are both right sided people in every other respect.
    I have had many golf lessons and have never found a pro that under stands the strenght and weakness of a left handed golfer.
    A right handed golfer (batsman) hits with his right side so do left handed golfer ,left handers also have all the strenghts on thier right side.
    I do know that some people can play right and left handed
    I will be inerested in other peoples analogy
  9. Fred
    Not every left handed batsman is great though... At my local club I used to have the title of being the worst batsman ever to play for the club. My highest score was 8, and one of those was a 4 due to the ball flying of the edge of the bat and just avoiding 2nd slip.

    But my bowling sort of made up for it...
  10. Walter
    I have a similar story to Gary. I do everything left handed/footed except two handed batting. i.e cricket, baseball, golf etc. I have tried to bat left handed but find it very difficult. Is there any explanation for this. (I know people who are all right handed but bat left handed.) I find this very odd!!
  11. Gary Smitherman
    I used to play cricket when I was a younger. I was a left handed bowler but a right handed batsman, It was very amusing confusing the opposition. They assumed I would be a left handed batman set the field out as so and got very frustrated to reset the field for me, I use to get called all sorts of things . But it used to make me laugh. Great being left handed and ambetestrius .

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