Simon Hughes
To find gaps on the leg side, some players 'close the face'. This is done with late movement of the wrists. Just as the ball makes contact with bat, the bottom hand turns the blade inwards guiding the ball away at right angles. It looks as if the batsman is playing across the line, but he's not.
It seems that frail-looking batsmen of Indian origin are particularly good at this. Here's one (below), the left-handed Guyanese Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 'working' an off-side ball to leg. The ball was bowled on the side of the wicket where most of the fielders were but was hit to the side where most of them weren't.
 Closed face
Chanderpaul's blade (left) is turned inwards - the bowlers and fielders can see he is looking to play to leg.
Occasionally, closing the face results in a 'leading edge' when the blade is turned too early, and the ball lobs up off the front edge of the bat. But with a last second flick of the wrists, it can be a most effective way of batting. The former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin was perhaps the consummate master of this.
You can usually tell if a batsman will tend to open or close the face by looking at how he holds the bat in his stance. Chanderpaul (below left) clearly has the bat turned inwards in his stance, implying that he'll be prone to hitting the ball on the leg-side. Fellow West Indian Jimmy Adams (below right) is the opposite, and prefers squeezing the ball out on the off side. You can set fields accordingly.
 Closed or open?
Chanderpaul's blade (far left) is turned inwards, so the bowlers and fielders can see he is looking to play to leg, but Adams (near left) stands with an open face.
Copyright material reproduced under license from Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London, England
Copyright © Simon Hughes 2001
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