Former England cricketer and coach David Lloyd has compared Ben Duckett to former Indian attacking opener Virender Sehwag.Lloyd wrote in his column for the Daily Mail: “Ben Duckett has come a long way since he poured a drink over Jimmy Anderson on an Ashes tour.”“He is now England’s answer to Virender Sehwag and is opening the batting in your World XI. The reverse sweep is such a natural shot for him. He plays it for fun.“It’s no surprise to learn he was a good hockey player at school because it’s like a hockey shot.”
Duckett’s batting coach, James Knott, from his school days at Stowe School, has revealed why the southpaw is so good with the reverse sweep.“I’d seen better technical ability at that age, but he hit the ball very hard and had already begun reverse-sweeping, which he took from hockey,” Knott told The Times.“We worked on orthodox sweeping and laps, and midway through his time at Stowe, the school acquired a Merlyn spin-bowling machine. In one match, against Brighton College from Australia, Ben went from 100 to 150 entirely through reverse-sweeps.
“Certainly, I didn’t want to take away his attacking flair. And although he had a big hunger for runs, he was not selfish.“He wanted to open the batting as school cricket was not going to be much of a challenge if he was coming in at No. 4. That was the best thing to happen to him.“I thought he’d have a longer career in the shorter forms of the game and wasn’t sure if he would be successful at Test level, but Ben Stokes and ‘Baz’ McCullum arrived at just the right time for him.”Duckett played an excellent knock of 149 to help the hosts chase down 371 runs on the final day of the Leeds Test.
