Dhawan's guard change could be a success formula in South Africa

We are just about coming to that time when Indian batsmen start thinking about technique, countering the moving ball, overcoming extra bounce and the like. With India on the brink of a long away season, against some of the most challenging teams and conditions, it's quite understandable that batsmen fill themselves with thoughts of conditions abroad and how they should tackle them.

• India's mission for 1-1-1, with all respect to the consistency, form and dominance shown by Virat Kohli's side at home, would not be complete without hoisting a victorious flag on foreign soil, starting with South Africa early next year. From that angle, the year ahead proves to be of utmost importance.
• As it usually is when India head outside of Asia, all eyes turn towards the batsmen to see how adept they would be at handling the bounce, pace or movement on offer. Being the openers, it's only natural that Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan will be scrutinised severely first up. The spotlight would shine brightest on the left-handed opener, whose technique has come under question previously. His ability to handle the new red Kookaburra outside of the subcontinent will be closely looked at.
• Now it's heartening to see Dhawan make a few positive changes in his game that would allow him to play much better in South Africa. The most important, and for Dhawan's sake constructive, change he's made is to his guard.
• When Dhawan bats, most times, the off and the middle stumps are seen. On some occasions, there is even a glimpse of the leg stump. The last time he played Tests outside the subcontinent, he struggled to be himself. He only has three fifties and one hundred in 24 innings outside the subcontinent. In South Africa, England and Australia, where India should play next year, he has just one fifty in 16 innings. All this was before he made adjustments to his guard.
• For this series against Sri Lanka, he seems to have moved more stumpward in his guard, showing lesser of the target for the bowler. This, to me, is a pleasing adjustment and a very apt one, considering all the travelling that India will be doing in the next year.
• The time to make this adjustment couldn't have been more relevant too. Where there is pace and bounce, the percentage of LBW decisions and bowleds will diminish, and this allows the batsmen to play with the guard more closer to the middle stump.
• In such conditions, a batsman has to get behind the line of the ball to try and get in to positions to show the full face of the bat. It also prompts a batsman to look for scoring opportunities in front of the wicket where the risk-to-reward percentages are much more favourable.
• One of the most successful Test batsmen in recent times, the Australian captain Steven Smith stands as an example before us, exposing all of his stumps to the bowler at the start, but then reaching an active neutral point from a batsman's perspective as the ball is being bowled. He moves his right foot back and across, covering the stumps but keeps his left leg almost at the same place. This gives room for his bat to come through for the straighter ball on the stumps.
• Dhawan's back lift is much straighter than Smith's - towards slips, rather than gully - and this automatically allows for better head positions from where everything flows downwards.
• The guard is basically a guide for the batsman indicating where he is in relation to the stumps behind him. Changing the guard and adjusting to a new one may not entail a technical adjustment for a batsman, but trust me, it's harder mentally for the batsman to adjust to a new starting position, than it seems.
• In Dhawan's case, he always had a tendency to play beside the ball. A habit bred through playing a lot of cricket on slow, low bounce wickets in the subcontinent and excessive limited-overs cricket. In limited-overs cricket, bowlers are invariably looking to cramp the batsmen up for room and the batsman is always looking to create room, resulting in playing beside the line of the ball.
• It's been a roller coaster ride for Dhawan thus far when he's played for India. He was already quite a fun character when I first met him as we toured Australia with India A in 2005-06. He's gone on to become a regular for India now, but an interesting attribute lies in how he's so very prolific in one format, and not so much in the other.
• But now, it's very nice to see the Indian batsman trying to stay ahead of the curve. You don't have the luxury of time to go back and work on your game, from that perspective this series against Sri Lanka has been a perfect platform for the cream of the team to try these things... and it's even better that the results were in the positive.