Ben Duckett is among the greatest sweepers I have ever seen - the opener put paid to claims he could not play spin with a fabulous ton in Multan, writes NASSER HUSSAIN

Oct 17, 2024

By Nasser Hussain 20:16 16 Oct 2024, updated 20:16 16 Oct 2024

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I have seen some great sweepers of the ball in my time. I think back to left-handers such as Brian Lara, Graham Thorpe, Marcus Trescothick and Andy Flower. But Ben Duckett is right up there with the very best.

For him, the sweep shot is like a forward defence. It is just so natural to him. He is short in height, which means he picks up length well, and he nails virtually every one of them. I can’t think of one on day two that he top edged – and as a left hander you have to constantly cope with the rough outside your off stump.

He has such a repertoire. If you think of someone like Matthew Hayden, another left-hander who was a great sweeper, he mainly had the hard slog sweep. But Duckett has the hard sweep, the dab sweep, the slog sweep, the reverse sweep behind square, the reverse sweep in front of square.

I remember him speaking to myself and Michael Atherton on a podcast about the variety of his sweeps and it is into double figures. To have that repertoire makes it so difficult for a bowler and captain.

When Duncan Fletcher was coach of England and I was captain, he used to get so frustrated when commentators moaned about us playing the sweep shot. In the sub-continent, the more it spun, the more he wanted us to go to that shot because there was more value in it.

If you are batting somewhere like Perth, or in an indoor net, it is rock hard and it comes on to the bat easier. Hitting it straight is easier when it’s like that because you can just hit through the line.

But the slower it is, and the more it turns, the harder it is to hit down the ground. When it is spinning, you have to go with the ball.

If you try and play straight, as Ollie Pope found out when he was bowled trying to play the big drive or Harry Brook found when he tried to cut it off the back foot, you end up leaving a gap between bat and pad and you are vulnerable.

The more it spins, the squarer you have to hit the ball – with the spin or against the spin - with a horizontal bat.

It also gets rid of fielders. The moment you are sweeping, men round the bat have to disappear because boundary options are coming.

The bowler then has to adjust his line, his length and his pace and it puts him off bowling his stock ball. As a bowler, if you bowl your best ball and you are still being swept, you don’t know where to go from there.

When Duckett was batting, it looked like the pitch was fine and it wasn’t doing that much, but actually it was starting to spin.

Then after Duckett got out, and the other batters didn’t go to the sweep as much because they were playing for the close of play, all of a sudden it looked like that Bunsen burner of a pitch that everyone was expecting. You could see how much of a struggle it was for some of England’s batters.

Overall, you have to give huge credit to England for getting Duckett back into the side because he has been one of their major ticks in the last couple of years.

This was a batter who was labelled not a great player of spin when he struggled on turning pitches in Bangladesh back in 2016, or was getting out to Ravi Ashwin in India.

But since he has come back into the fold, Duckett has shown what a nonsense those comments were.

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