Cricket is a world famous game and there are millions of people around the world who play it every day. It's a simple and an easy to understand game for those who play it but those who are not its players find it hard to understand. But the truth is that it actually is easy. All you need to do is to play it and you'll grasp every part of it with time.

I thought of bringing up a series on this and let people know what this game is and how it's played. It's going to benefit those who have little knowledge of it and even those who play it, because I'll be talking about the proper ways or the conventional ways of playing it that will help some players improve their game as well.

My first part of the series is : How to grip the bat. 

Note: The examples will be for the right handed batsmen and those who bat the other side can adjust accordingly. 

There are different ways in which a bat can be handled. I'll talk about a few here which will help you grip the bat correctly. 

1. Take your top hand and open the space between your thumb and pointing finger and put it on the right side of the curve behind the back of the bat. The V that's made by your thumb and pointing finger has to go down though this right curve to the top of the handle. In other words align the V with the right side or curve of the bat at the top of the handle. Now take your right hand's (bottom hand's) V and align it to the back of the bat in a straight line. The line that separates the two side behind the bat has to align with your right hand's V. 

2. Another way and an easy way to grip the bat is to put your bat down on floor and think of the bat as an axe. Now take the bat up with both your hands as if you're taking up an axe to cut something. When you get the bat in your hands you realize that you have exactly gripped the bat as mentioned in step 1.


3. This one is a totally different way to grip the bat. Put the lines of your right and left hand (the lines where the fingers start) on right and left side of the handle respectively and take hold of the bat by gripping it. It's another way to take a proper or basic grip of the bat.

It's important to know what is the role of the hands in holding a bat. You must know what's the use of the bottom hand as well as the top hand. Now that you have understood the basic grip, you need to know the role of the hands. The top hand should be dominant, which means you should have control of the bat with your top hand. Your top hand grip has to strong. While on the other side, the bottom hand needs to be a support for the top hand, to give direction to the bat. It should neither be gripped hard nor too soft. You should just use it to hold the bat and get a feel of it. You can understand the bottom hands role in the grip more if you grip the bat with your thumb and pointing finger and leave the other three fingers off the handle. Sometimes you'll feel them on the handle and sometimes not. Again, I'm talking about a basic grip and there are players who prefer different ways but at the end of the day it's everyone's personal preference. 


It will be great if you keep a similar distance between your hands and top and bottom of the handle. It will give your shots more control. Keep a little distance of a finger or two from your bottom hand and bottom of handle, your bottom and and top hand and a similar distance between your top and and top handle. Some players like to keep no distance between their hands which gives them more power but that results in a lesser control. So the even things out, they above mentioned way is the basic and proper way to do it. 

If you have a wrong grip, you might be playing not as well as you could. You could be a leg side player or an off side player only because of your wrong way of gripping the bat. So in order to become a player to score on both sides of the ground you need to have a proper grip. 

Perfect example of the use of your elbow and shoulder and also the top hand. 

Another thing that has to be mentioned is that we have heard the top hand controls your shots but that's not actually the case. It's your elbow and your shoulder that controls your shot. If you play a shot off the front foot with a solid top hand but your elbow is pointing inside the line of the shot you will not get a desired result out of that shot. Your elbow plays a major role in playing a shot off the front foot or back foot.

So what we learn from the points above is that you should always use the correct grip to play on both sides of the wicket, the top hand has dominate, the bottom hand has to handle the bat softly, your elbow and your shoulders need to be used properly to direct your shots perfectly.

Hope you liked the first part. Will be back soon with another.