When I first read that cricket is going to allow switch-hitting, I thought how archaic is this sport?
Guardian blogger Richard Williams defends employing switch-hitting, citing Mickey Mantle's success switching to bat lefty so that he could pooch balls over the short right field wall in Yankee Stadium.
That was pretty revolutionary, progressive thinking...also happened over 50 years ago.
What these cricket ninnies - and cricket is a game played by ninnies - are actually talking about is if the batter (guh, batsman) jumping across the plate (errr, wickets) mid-pitch and then swinging. See for yourself:
Shoot, that was pretty hard core. After Kevin Pietersen hit those two sixes against New Zealand the other day (they look like garden-variety jimmy jacks to me) the MCC endorsed his improvisation.
One of the guvs was quoted saying: Indeed, the stroke conforms to the Laws of Cricket and will not be legislated against!"
That's great...and geez take it easy, will ya?
According to a Gaurdian poll, 87% of people are against allowing the switch hit (also called the reverse sweep, or the Dominic Monaghan - whose voice it is I hear in my head when I read the Guardian.)
One the commenters on Williams blog asked, who can forget Mike Gatting's disastrous attempt at [a reverse sweep] at the World Cup in 1987?
Gatting, bloody idiot.
Ah yes, there's the fancy lad effeteness we've come to expect from cricket. I feel much better.
