New Delhi: Ambidextrous cricketers are cricketers who can use both arms in bowling. An ambidextrous cricketer may be bowling with right hand in one over and with left hand in the other. It is a rare breed of cricketer. Cricket has been an orthodox sport and batsmen are told to keep their strong hand at the bottom of the handle. But there have been variances over the years, and in a revitalizing way.One such difference is ambidextrous bowlers, players who can change their bowling arms in the middle of an over. And it's all within the rules of cricket as well. All that the bowler needs to do is to tell the umpire prior to the delivery, with which arm is he/she is going to bowl next.It's somewhat a surprising incident, but Sir Gary Sobers scored his world record breaking 365th run off the great Hanif Mohammad's left-arm bowling way back in 1958.The astonishing part is that Hanif was a right-arm spinner who resolved to bowl a few left-arm deliveries to bring change to the game. Indeed, Hanif picked up his maiden first-class wicket while bowling left-arm spin, when he bowled right-hand Somerset batsman Roy Smith in 1954.In 1996 World Cup, when Sri Lanka made 398 runs and Kenya could manage only 254, Hasan Tillakaratne bowled both left and right-handed spin in the last over when the result of the game was beyond any doubt.In recent times, even batsmen having also started using both hands while batting and the shots become famous as "switch hit". English player Kevin Pietersen started ‘switch hitting' in 2008 in international cricket, and there was a lot of uproar over its validity. . David Warner is one more batsman who comes to mind when we talk about ambidextrous cricketers.From Sourav Ganguly to Chris Gayle, Clive Lloyd to JP Duminy, the list is long when we talk about players who bat with one hand and bowl with the other. Michael Hussey was a right-handed batsman till he was 9 years of age but then he switched to left-arm, inspired by the great Allan Border.
Updated on: October 23, 2013 6:27 IST
