Melbourne, July 24 (Inditop.com) Michael Hussey, who is struggling to find form in the Ashes series, says he is working to rectify a minor technical flaw in his batting that was pointed by skipper Ricky Ponting and feels it could turn around his bad patch.
Hussey has been one of Australia’s batting mainstay since making debut in 2005 but suddenly finds himself in the middle of a lean trot as Australia fights back a resurgent England.
The left-hander found that his right shoulder was coming too far around, creating problems.
“That was causing my eyes not to be level with the bowler,” Hussey was quoted as saying in The Australian.
“Ricky picked it up. I was struggling with a couple of balls. I felt like I wasn’t picking it up early, like I had a blind spot there.
“I was looking out towards mid-off a little bit, which gave me a slight blind spot and meant I couldn’t pick the ball up quite as early out of the bowler’s hand as I would have liked.
“I have just tried to open myself up a little bit to look straight at the bowler. It’s helped me to pick the ball up a little bit earlier out of the bowler’s hand.”
Ponting told him he too faced a similar problem before. “He said I was not looking quite at the right area so I just made a small adjustment from there.”
However, Hussey believes that his technique is only part of the battle after averaging 35 against New Zealand at home then 17 and 22 against South Africa in three-Test series at home and away before this Ashes tour.
“More so, it’s trying to relax,” he said.
“I’ve certainly struggled more when I put a lot of pressure on myself and when I was not getting the results I was after against South Africa I was starting to try harder and harder and harder.
“I’m more trying to go the other way, relax and keep the pressure off myself, stick to my preparation and stick to my game plan, and just having faith in that,” said Hussey, who is leading Australia in the three-day tour match against Northampton in the absence of a resting Ponting, Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin.
Hussey is back at Northampton, where he played much of his county cricket earlier in his career, and said it felt like a home-coming.
“I owe a lot to Northampton because I learnt a lot of my cricket here, particularly playing against spin bowling,” he said.
rounak