Image Credit- Cricket Australia
Phoebe Litchfield is a multitasker. She adopts the
habit of making soaring catches that defy gravity. Indeed, after one such
outburst that led to her ejection, India batswoman Jemimah Rodrigues, who was
Litchfield’s teammate at the Northern Superchargers in the women’s Hundred,
remarked that she no longer wanted to be his friend. However, Litchfield also
plays a mean reverse-sweep and bats elegantly. Despite being one of her
strongest shots, the bowlers still don’t expect her to play it. In both the WBBL
the previous few seasons and her inaugural women’s Hundred season last year,
she repeatedly demonstrated that stroke. Gujarat Giants decided to spend INR 1
crore (about USD 120,000) on her for the WPL 2024 as a result of her exploits.
In the one-off Test in India last month, Litchfield
attempted a reverse sweep against Sneh Rana but was caught in the chop. That
didn’t stop her, though, as she repeatedly displayed the shot during her
chart-topping performance in Australia’s convincing three-match ODI series
victory over India. Litchfield was the only batsman on either team to play the
reverse sweep as extensively in the ODIs. She used it twelve times and received
a score of twenty-two; the next highest attempts at the reverse sweep came from
Alyssa Healy, with four.
“I still play it no matter if it spins or
not,” Litchfield said of the reverse-sweep after her 119 at the Wankhede
Stadium in the third ODI. “It’s more about the area of the ground I can
access rather than [thinking] if it’s spinning, and then if it is spinning it’s
probably a good option because it’s hard to play with a straight bat.”
“I have got to work on the conventional sweep
because it’s got me out every ODI innings hit so far. The reverse is a strength
of mine and I practice it a lot on the nets and just work on my wrist speed. I
think that’s an important factor of it. And just sort of controlling it. One of
them went in the air close to [Pooja] Vastrakar [at backward point] today. It’s
just all down to practice.”