Saucey Scoop
2023 has been a good year for Aiden Markram, he just made it better with a sensational scoop
Aiden Markram didn't slog his way to the fastest 100 in an ODI World Cup, he batted his way to it.
Markram waited until he was sure the ball was full, then his legs went akimbo before the hands took over to direct the ball over the fielder at short third. When I think of Markram’s maiden ODI World Cup century, I think of that reverse scoop because it’s not an Aiden Markram-type of shot. Markram drives, pulls and sweeps. He punches, cuts and hooks. You can probably count on one hand the number of times he has scooped in ODIs.
The scoop has been around for some time. Learie Constantine claims to have scooped a full toss in 1933. “The ball was as big as a full moon to me that day and I remember I moved out of my crease to meet the ball which Allom was coming up to deliver. He saw me move and tried to send a slow full toss over my approaching form. I spotted it in time. I could not reach it with a textbook shot because there is nothing in the textbook about that situation, so I wrote a new chapter by helping it on over my head and the pavilion,” Constantine wrote.
It took 68 years for the scoop to make a comeback when Doug Marillier employed it against Glenn McGrath. A year after Marillier, 2002, Australia’s Ryan Campbell adapted the shot. But, unlike Marillier’s scoop, which targeted short fine leg, Campbell tried to put the ball directly behind the wicketkeeper. This all led to Tillakaratne Dilshan’s Dilscoop.
Dilshan was the first player to fully commit to executing the shot consistently. One time, Dilshan mistimed the scoop and he edged it onto his helmet. He was lucky that the worst outcome at that moment was a bruised ego. It could have been worse. Dilshan was the Johnny Appleseed of the scoop and his commitment to the shot inspired Jos Buttler.
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When Jos Buttler broke into the England first team in 2011, the established players turned to him wanting to know how he played his scoop. They were all in awe of how the 20-year-old executed the shot. Markram’s story is the opposite, when he broke into the South Africa first team, everyone marvelled at his technique. Ali Bacher claimed that the two best batting techniques he had seen in South African cricket came from Barry Richards and Jacques Kallis, and Markram's batting technique was as good as theirs.
Watching Markram execute the scoop is the same as watching Joe Root do it. It doesn’t matter how many times you see them play it, it feels like the first time each time because even though they execute it well, they don’t play it often.
And when Markram played it against Sri Lanka, it was to punctuate a barnstorming innings against Sri Lanka. He had just reached 50 and was beginning the second part of his knock. It took him 34 deliveries to reach his eighth ODI half-century. It would take him another 15 deliveries to bring up his maiden ODI World Cup century.
On the ninth of February 2023, Aiden Markram scored a 58-ball century to lead Sunrisers Eastern Cape to an SA20 semi-final victory over the Joburg Super Kings. In the post-match conference, he told reporters that until that day he had never thought he possessed the power game to reach a 20-over ton batting at No 4 - those pyrotechnics, he believed, were reserved for the AB de Villiers' of the world.
Against Sri Lanka, he earned himself a seat at the same table as de Villiers and all the other explosive ODI stars. Markram didn’t just pull off a barnstorming knock, he was in control of 91% of his shots while striking at a rate of 196.29. That’s top tier. When he executed the scoop, it wasn’t because he was under pressure and wanted to release pressure. He was already scoring at a canter and did it because he wanted to keep the bowler under the pump. When Markram plays like this, he is as good as anyone has been in ODI cricket, or better. Today, he was better.
Most players would have to slog senselessly to come within touching distance of scoring a 49-ball century. Not Aiden Markram. He is so technically correct he failed to score off three full tosses that tailender sloggers would have gone to town on. His innings was a clinic in drives. Almost a quarter of his runs came off the off drive.
When facing pacers, batters have a 0.5-second reaction window. To play the reverse scoop successfully, batters need to premeditate the shot. Markram moved into position to play the shot as soon as Madushanka released the ball. When the ball reached him, he was set - knees bent and hands low to get enough power to lift the ball over the inner ring.
The scoop is part of Aiden Markram, the top order technician, transforming into a world-class middle-order batter. “You bump your head a few times trying to explore options that are not your Plan A and are not necessarily your strengths. Sometimes you get confidence from it and you try to bring it out in the game and it doesn’t work out and you go and think why am I trying it? Ultimately that's what it's about, you have options as a batter. If it comes off, fantastic. If it doesn’t then you can sleep better knowing you stuck to your strengths and your options,” says Markram.
This time around, Markram didn’t bump his head. He executed the scoop to perfection. When Constantine Learie executed the reverse scoop in 1933, he added a chapter to the shot manual. When Aiden Markram executed it 90 years later, he added a chapter to the record books.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS