Playing Style
A shot that Waugh gradually developed (during the 1998 Commonwealth Games specifically) against spin bowling, the "slog sweep" is theoretically technically unsound, but has proven highly effective against the spinners and even against faster bowlers at times. What was also noticeable about Waugh (particularly in the Test arena) on his return to the side was his reluctance (and eventual refusal) to play, what he viewed as, the 'risky' hook shot, rather simply to either play defensively on the back foot, sway or duck out of the way. With this shot removed from Waugh's repertoire his batting developed a safer more reliable look and his Test match batting average steadily rose to around 50 for the remainder of his Test career.
Waugh's ability to continue to play despite a back injury that largely prevented him bowling further enhanced his reputation. Waugh, along with the bowling of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, provided perhaps the major foundation upon which the Australian team rose to become what was widely regarded as the best team in the world by the mid-1990s. He contributed to many one day victories but, often batting in the middle order, his first one-day hundred did not come until his 187th match, for Australia against Sri Lanka at Melbourne in 1995–96.
Read more about this topic: Steve Waugh
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or style:
“While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)