Behind Tim David’s big sixes for Australia, Twenty20
Tim David clubs a six against the West Indies recently. Credit:Cricket Australia / Twitter “I had the experience of playing in the Big Bash over a couple of seasons, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to come up against,” David says. “When I got released from WA, my only opportunities so far and what looked like being in future had been to bat in the middle order in T20, so we had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. It happened pretty naturally and we went at it. Training was fun, we just tried to hit sixes for as long as we could. Bryson DeChambeau loads up his swing in 2020, the year he won the US Open. Credit:Getty “At its most basic it was try to get as strong as you can, and do the specific exercise you can do for that, replicate the swing, and try to hit as many sixes and hit the ball as far as you can. That was how it was, and we just tried to push it as far as we could go really. I think there’s still a lot more that I can do, a lot more improving to do, but so far it’s been going well.”
As it had in golf virtually since Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters tournament, increasing emphasis has been placed on power hitting in Twenty20 cricket, especially towards the end of an innings. Lance Klusener had shown the way in the 50-over game, but few had followed. Almost none had done so in Australia. Loading “We naturally got to a point where there wasn’t much point practising forward defences or leaving the ball,” Allenby says. “It was, ‘Let’s try to go down this path, there’s a role no one’s doing at No.6 in T20, might as well get as good as possible at that, and you can always come back to four-day cricket or 50-over cricket later.’ Clearly it was a good decision, but I think it fell into place because it had to.” For the most part, focused work on hitting the ball as far as possible was something state and international players did among other things. As NSW state coach, Phil Jaques denoted “T20 Tuesday” as the day when batters could think purely in terms of attack. That’s more time than most.
David and Allenby, by contrast, committed to two-hour sessions at least three times a week. All built upon helping David hit short balls, full balls, wide balls and straight balls - primarily delivered by pace bowlers - over the boundary. “In that winter of 2019 I think Tim added 10-20 metres onto his hitting,” Allenby says. “It’s fine to hit a six 75 metres when you middle it, but the goal from my point of view was to try to help him be able to toe the ball for six or splice it for six. “He didn’t necessarily have to middle it to hit it for six, the mechanics of the swing allowed imperfect contact to still go for six, and that gives the player confidence that they can clear any boundary and the fielders don’t really matter then. Jim Allenby (back row, fourth from left) and Tim David (front row, second from right) after winning a one-day pennant in WA. “Indoors training is fine, but actually seeing the visual, psychological thing of seeing how far the ball is going is just as important. So outdoor sessions are very important for someone looking to go down this path.”
One conclusion reached by Allenby and David through their training is that better comparisons are made between the golf swing and the batter’s hitting arc than between those of baseball and cricket. “Certainly, I look at golf in terms of the mechanics of the swing and more the swing plane than anything,” Allenby says. “Because it pretty much goes the same way as hitting a ball over long on to cow corner for 120 metres, which is the ultimate goal of this process. “Baseball is not quite what people think it is, it’s more of a golf swing because it’s a bit more consistent, and that’s where the ball generally is, not hitting it on the full. And from a training point of view if you want to swing hard like Bryson, he trains to hit the ball hard. Loading “But I think the worst thing you can do is get too complicated with this stuff and try to reinvent the wheel. There’s some cross-learning from other sports, but it’s mainly about trying to get the bat in a straight line through the ball as quickly as possible and as often as possible.”
That was the theory. But the hardest obstacle for David to overcome was less physical than mental: to gamble that by giving short shrift to other elements of his game, he would be able to steal an advance on bowlers in the 10-20 balls he expected to face at the back end of a Twenty20 innings. “It kept building the whole time, it would get better and better, and then we were like, ‘This is going pretty well’,” David says. “Then waiting for an opportunity to play a game and that came in the BBL for the Hurricanes. That was the first time where really, a couple of games in, we checked back and thought we’ve prepared pretty well here and onto something good. “There’s a lot said about levers and that sort of thing, but to me, it’s about an ability to hit the ball hard, commit to try to hit the ball hard. One thing that does help me is my reach, being able to hit wide balls and still hold your shape and hit those over the off side, that’s something that helps me a lot. Tim David made 50 against India during his third match for Australia last month. Credit:Getty “But it’s really the training you do. I try to bat instinctively in games, I don’t have a lot of balls to face, so it comes back to training. If you prepare well and tick all those boxes, then you can try to go after it in a match.”
For Allenby, the focused training would not have worked if David had not committed to it as fully as he did. It is a resolve that, as most players still juggle formats, he is yet to see replicated. “I’ve not seen anyone come close to that desire to be as good and to gamble as well, to understand the consequences and say ‘I might as well be the best at something or do something else’,” Allenby says. “I think a lot of other people take a safer approach to cover more bases and be pretty good at some things, whereas no one else yet has let go and said, ‘I’m going to go full tilt at this.’ “To do it in your early 20s, it’s certainly motivated me and inspired me to try to get better to help him, to see someone who is that willing to fail, in order to succeed.” And there’s another one: Tim David belts out against the West Indies. Credit:Cricket Australia / Twitter In finding the mental strength to go a different way, David also built the self-reliance to suggest to the national selectors this year that it would be better to play in the Pakistan Super League, thereby winning an Indian Premier League contract, than to be a reserve batter for a home T20 series against Sri Lanka. Nine months later, and he is not only in the World Cup squad, but a key part of Australia’s plan to defend the title.
A little of that perspective came from something else David and Allenby share: a conviction to not let cricket mutate into something more than a game to be enjoyed. “Coming out of the game when I did, I was noticing that people were just taking themselves a bit too seriously and sessions weren’t as fun,” Allenby says. “It’s supposed to be fun, you’re playing with your mates. You’re trying to win the game, sure, but no one’s living and dying by your performance. Loading “I like that balance in Tim’s perspective, and that helps his role - you’ll have many more bad days than good days when you’re batting six and you’ve got between five and 10 balls to make an impact. He has that emotional intelligence to understand what you’re doing is entertainment, and that’s why I think we’ve worked pretty well together, because we certainly have a similar opinion on how the game should be played.“ Maintaining that view under the floodlight of a World Cup, as everything about his game is dissected, is a challenge that David has already clocked.
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