OK Let`s Settle This Once and For All : Are Left Handers the Greatest of All Time?

        Mitchell Johnson


By Perkins Bare

First of all happy left hander`s day if you clicked on this link with your left hand and hope you had a wonderful left hander`s day yesterday. One of a bowler`s greatest innate qualities has always been being left handed and batsmen always had that fear of seeing a left hander running up the pitch but of all who`ve graced the game of cricket we look at those who`ve wrecked the records to make us believe that if you`re a bowler and you were born right handed then you`re screwed because someone out there is better than you.

`It is hard to see why the left-arm quick bowler should be such a rarity. In any adversarial sport there are advantages to being a minority` writes The New York Times. According to study done by the journal Biology Letters it was proven that left handers actually do have an added advantage, “The data suggests that the heavier the time constraints are operating in a sport, the larger the proportion of left-handers,” said Dr Florian Loffing of the University of Oldenburg in Germany, who authored the study. “We are less used to playing lefties, and [so] might end up in not developing the optimal strategies to compete with them. This study do makes sense in light of conditioning for when a batsman settles down and finally get to condition themselves on a pitch, the introduction of a left hander then changes everything for they have to then change their line and in most cases try recondition themselves.

One of the greatest fast bowlers to be born left handed has to be Mitchell Johnson and what made Mitch a great bowler was his pace and aggression on the pitch that batsmen cannot help but just give into. One memorable match has to be when he took 7-40 in an Ashes match missing out two chances to get a hatrick. What makes this innings one of the greatest was the fact that Mitch Johnson was averaging speeds of 150km/h which gave the English batsmen 0.3 of a second to react to the ball, and if they found themselves in the wrong place it was either in the belly or it was the wicket falling. Johnson starred in 153 ODIs for Australia and grabbed 239 wickets at an average of 25.26 and an economy of 4.84 with the best bowling figures of 6 for 31.

Another notable left hander to challenge him in that respect has to be Zaheer Khan. The Indian also had great pace averaging 138 but one who has used variation to his advantage over the years. ` Pace has never been the most important criteria for me. Obviously you cannot be bowling at 125kph, but if I am able to bowl at 135 with variations and have control over line and length it is equivalent to bowling as quick as 140kph. I have focused on speed-up variations: if I am bowling at an average speed of 131-133kph, suddenly I spike it to 138kph. The odd ball has proved crucial.` he said in one interview with Zaheer Khan. We can go on and on with likes of Daniel Vittori who`s flight always fooled the batsmen but whose variation with the ball never ceased to amaze us. He is more like a nerdy geek with his school-boyish spectacles than a cricketer and when he holds the ball with the left hand it seems to complete the puzzle but don`t be fooled his stats made hime one of the greatest bowlers in New Zealand cricket. He still holds his record for the youngest Kiwi to play in a Test match at the age of 18 against England with the ODI coming a month later in Christchurch.

En suite we have Kumar Sangakkara who goes down as one of the greatest openers and he holds the record for most consecutive hundreds (4) in a World Cup. The stats for the man speak for themselves with 14234 runs at an average of 41.98 and a strike-rate of 78.86, which also include 93 fifties and 25 centuries with the highest score being 169. According to espn `He ticked most of the boxes over a stunningly successful 15-year Test career` and over his career what makes him stand out was his finishing of his career strong which saw him registering centuries in his last four Tests that he played seeing him off to a career average of 60.82 just behind Don Bradman in the highest test average list. 
Or maybe a bit closer to home the recognized Andy Flower who was also left handed and one of the greatest batsmen who averaged 51 and 35 in Tests and ODI`s respectively But what sticks out is that even though he comes out of Chevron`s glory days, for him hysteria has never been an option.

According to the Guardian ` Of his 4,794 Test runs, 2,713 came on the losing side; of players to have made 1,500 Test runs in defeats, only Jack Hobbs and Len Hutton averaged more than Flower's 43; of his 12 Test centuries, seven were made in lost causes. Hysteria has not been an option`, but the ability to then go ahead and be a great coach for England will also go down as one of the greatest hall marks f his career. ` He took them to No.1 in the world in every format, he took them to a World T20 title and three Ashes wins on the trot` writes the Mirror.

We may go on and on to talk of the greats like Brian Lara who`s highest individual score in both first-class cricket (501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994) and Test cricket (400 not out for the West Indies against England in 2004). In studies done it has shown that batsmen who hold their bats the unconventional way i.e with the stronger hand at the bottom like Chris Gayle tend to stir up a storm whenever they`re on the pitch.

Statistics have shown that about 13 percent of the adult population is left-handed but surprisingly the majority of that minority is found in sports, if you review the list of the PBA top 50 bowlers of all time, you will find that 10 of them or about 20 percent were left-handed ad as is with the defense mechanism naturally built to counter the majority who bat right handed, the left hander`s get to enjoy an added advantage be it bowling or batting.

 Whatever the case on your side next time you`re on the pitch try to do it the unconventional way as among some of the greatest players of recent times have used a reversed stance with the others being born left-handed, these include Brian Lara, Clive Lloyd, David Gower, Adam Gilchrist, Alistair Cook, Michael Hussey, Matthew Hayden and Kumar Sangakkara - all actually right-hand dominant in everyday life especially the latter who was encouraged by his brother to use the right hand.