Jaker Ali was nearing his fifty in a Camilla Victorians intra-squad match at the Masco Cricket Academy ahead of the last BPL season when his mentor Mohammad Salahuddin went up to him and asked him to changed his stance as well as his backlift.
Salahuddin advised Jaker to stretch his legs a bit and go for a higher backlift, much like how a baseball batter would stand in front of the pitcher. Jaker tried it out in the middle and to his surprise hit a six with his ease, an effort that changed the course of his cricketing education.
"When you are having high backlift in that case the bat's range of motion gets bigger and along with that if the base is strong in that case he can hit the ball hard and to different parts of the ground and that is why I suggested him to work on his stance and stretch a bit and go for a higher backlift,"
The right-hander tried to incorporate these suggestions into his technique and it took him more than a year to reap its rewards as he put on an impressive show in the the following BPL season [this year], amassing 199 runs at an average of 99.5 and a strike rate of 141. Jaker proved that his exploits in the BPL were not a fluke and showcased his talent even on a bigger stage by blazing a fifty in the T20I series opener against Sri Lanka in a high-pressure chase.
Jaker said that it was not easy for him to change his batting approach and put a new one in place.
"When you move a lot during power hitting... what happens is that at that point it was difficult to connect the yorker and the ball that is coming over 135+ [kph] and the slower ones too. If you are not stable it is difficult to connect these balls but when you are in a stable position with a strong base at that point it is easy to pick those deliveries and because of the balance even the mishit goes out of the park," he said.
"I am trying to generate the power from the ground because we are not genetically very powerful so we have to do power hitting by following the right technique and because there is a technique to hit sixes we have to use that and it becomes easy by following the technique," he said.
Jaker revealed that he can now switch to his original stance too when there are no requirements for big hits and that at times he tries to play with the bowler's mind bat by setting up in the power-base stance but play in normal mode.
"I can play in two set-ups and I can change my stance according to the situation," said Jaker. "At times I give bluff because everyone knows that when I am playing with that power-base stance that I am in a mood to hit but at times that is not the case and I go for ones and twos so you can say it is kind of mind game," he said.
Beyond his big-hitting potential, Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha was also impressed with the 26-year-old's display of a calm head in the middle while playing the high-pressure role of a finisher in the shortest format.
"It is very refreshing to see what he can do. I only saw him in this BPL. He is very calm which is really nice to see. It is one quality you need from someone who bats at Nos. 5, 6 or 7. Most of the times you have to do certain things with limited time and it was really pleasing to see what he (Jaker) can do. It gave us a lot of confidence as a team," he said.
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