Ranking 5 best batsmen of the pull shot

Cricket has become an advanced sport ever since its inception back in the late 1800s. The technical aspects have grown with the passage of time and one gets to analyse each other’s shortcomings without much of a difficulty. Before every contest, players sit down with the technical team to decipher the shortcoming of the opposition teams and thereafter formulate the apt strategies. Most batters have their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. For a few, the pull shot is a productive one. These batsmen are mightily strong on the backfoot and while the short balls can be daunting for some, a few of them doesn’t back off from fighting fire with fire. No matter how much a bowler bends its back, all the efforts mostly go in vain as they see the leather getting dispatched. In the article, we rank the top five players of the pull shot: – 5. Jacques Kallis Jacques Kallis. (Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images) Jacques Kallis used to stand tall to the bowlers and hardly used to commit himself, neither on the backfoot nor on the front foot. He used to watch the leather until the last moment and kept his options open while batting. It’s one of the reasons why he could play the pull shot without much of a fuss. He was strongly built and hence could generate some serious power while playing the strokes. Pace didn’t use to bother him much as more often than not, he managed to get under the ball. Having grown up on bouncy South African wickets, it’s not a surprise that he nails the pull with precision. Even as he was a dextrous puller, his short deliveries weren’t easy to face by any means. In his career, which lasted from 1995 to 2014, Kallis notched 25,534 runs and as many as 577 wickets. 4. AB de Villiers AB de Villiers of the Proteas. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images/Getty Images) One can’t afford to err in line and lengths to AB de Villiers, can they? In full flow, the South African can make a mockery of good deliveries, leave alone the bad ones. About playing the pull, he could be rated amongst the very best. He has the ability to smash even back-of-a-length balls with sheer disdain. The West Indies bowlers generally dig the leather in and extract bounce from the surface. But De Villiers isn’t someone to get flustered by such tactics. In fact, three of this top four ODI scores is against the Caribbean team itself, including the fastest century off 31 balls in Johannesburg. If it’s in his zone, ABD prefers to pick the bones out of it. He plays the short ferociously even on the front foot. In his career, the Pretoria-born scored 20,014 runs with 47 centuries to show for his efforts. 3. Ricky Ponting Ricky Ponting pull. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images) Ricky Ponting is currently second on the list of most centuries (71) in international cricket behind the legendary Sachin Tendulkar. Bowlers kept trying to find his shortcoming, but had to mostly return empty handed. Bouncing out someone is a strategy used by plenty of them. However, Ponting managed to neutralize them with authority. No wonder, he was one of the most elegant pullers. The Tasmanian used the depth of the crease to good effect, converting good length deliveries to short ones. Punter, as he was popularly known, had a high back-lift and hence, generating force in his strokes was never an issue for him. Ponting knew the art of swivelling around and play the half-trackers, both behind and in front of square. Ricky finished his career with 27,483 runs for Australia. 2. Rohit Sharma Rohit Sharma. (Photo Source: Twitter) Not often does Rohit Sharma mistime the pull shot. Once he indeed did off Mustafizur Rahman during the 2019 World Cup, but Tamim Iqbal gave him a reprieve. Bangladesh had to face the repercussions as Rohit tormented them with the pull itself. Having plied his trade in slow and tracks in India, Sharma is among the rare breed of sub-continent batters, who feasts on the short deliveries. The Nagpur-born reads the length quicker then most of the current batsmen and therefore, gets enough time to get himself in position. Rohit isn’t intimidated by pace and can muscle even thunderbolts in front of square. Most times, he manages to get the leather out of the screws. Not to forget how destructive he can be on the front foot as well. He currently has 14,000 runs for India. 1. Sir Vivian Richards Viv Richards. (Photo by Patrick Eagar/Popperfoto/Getty Images) Sir Vivian Richards belonged to the generation where run-scoring wasn’t the easiest. The fact that the West Indies couldn’t chase down around 180 off 60 overs in the 1983 World Cup final shows how tough was it to bat. Back in 1986, Richards smashed a 56-ball century against England at St Johns. The record stood intact for 30 years before Brendon McCullum’s 54-ball ton versus Australia in 2016. In ODI cricket, he played at a strike-rate in excess of 90, depicting his brutality in the middle. He also used to destroy bowlers, playing the pull shot. It was almost criminal to pepper the now 68-year-old with short-pitched balls. Also, playing Caribbean bowling at the nets was a probable reason why he was a dextrous puller. Richards ended his career with 15,291 runs in 308 balls with 35 tons and 90 fifties.

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Ranking 5 best batsmen of the pull shot

Dig it in short, and see the ball, sailing into the stands!

3. Ricky Ponting

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