writes Jon Hotten<\/a>. \u201cIt is dangerous and beautiful. It is decadent and depraved. It is the purest expression of mastery in batsmanship and it is a destroyer of innings, of matches, of careers. It is addictive, compulsive, indulgent. It makes crowds go \u2018aaaahhh\u2019. It makes coaches slam their fists into dressing room walls.\u201d<\/p>\nSpeaking of which, let us cast our minds back to lunchtime on day two of the first Ashes Test in Perth in November. England were 59 for one with a second innings lead of 99 when the curse of the cover drive struck. Ollie Pope and Harry Brook were both caught driving outside off-stump to Scott Boland before Joe Root was bowled attempting the same to Mitchell Starc. Root is a sumptuous cover driver but also, crucially, a discerning one. You don\u2019t chalk up nigh-on 14,000 Test runs by being reckless. His wicket was the gut punch. You kind of expect it from the rest, but not from him. Seeing Root get out in such a fashion was akin to witnessing the \u201csensible one\u201d on the stag do dancing on the bar with his top off. And just after lunch too.<\/p>\n
Harry Brook after his dismissal in Perth during the last Ashes. Photograph: Gary Day\/AP<\/p>\n
England\u2019s compulsion to play the cover drive ultimately cost them the Test in Perth and proved a decisive passage in the whole series. Not that their batting coaches were left punching any walls, Marcus Trescothick later admitting the squad had had \u201cno discussions\u201d about driving on the up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe percentages weren\u2019t in their favour to play the cover drive in Perth,\u201d Nasser Hussain tells The Spin. \u201cIt was zipping around and they were still driving on the up. Everyone knew England weren\u2019t for sitting in so Australia just held a line out there and played on the ego. England fell into the trap.\u201d<\/p>\n
The balance of risk and reward, the inherent dangerousness of the cover drive, are part of its appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about deciding when to play it, but that is also true of most cricket shots, really,\u201d says Hussain before he too seemingly falls under the spell of the cover drive. \u201cThe reason I love to see it now as a pundit and why I loved playing it as a player is because it is so elegant, so aesthetically pleasing. It\u2019s a touch shot in a game that has gone heavily towards power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe Root on the drive for Yorkshire while James Rew keeps wicket. Photograph: Harry Trump\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The cover drive is still seen as a touchstone, a marker of talent. If a player can cover drive and, almost as importantly, do so with style, then it elicits whispers of appreciation. WhatsApp messages are dispatched and social media clips shared. Hussain concurs, recalling that he saw the clip of Rew hitting his first four of the season in April and also one a few weeks later of him hitting the final delivery of a day\u2019s play against Hampshire for four. The shot? A cover drive. \u201cWe all have our favourite cover drivers, be it a Joe Root, Babar Azam, Virat Kohli \u2026 David Gower was always mine,\u201d coos Hussain.<\/p>\n
The shot itself is so often followed by a rumbling, appreciative purr from those watching. Zak Crawley\u2019s Exocet cover drive to the first ball of the 2023 Ashes series from Pat Cummins drew gasps from the crowd and even snorts of pleasure from the gnarled hacks looking on from the Edgbaston press box.<\/p>\n
The man most likely to replace Crawley at the top of England\u2019s batting card for the first Test of the summer is Rew. \u201cThere is no other shot that exists on such an edge,\u201d says Hotten of the cover drive. \u201cAn edge from which some will fall one way and some fall the other.\u201d Just like the game itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taunton, 3 April 2026. Somerset are hosting Nottinghamshire, the defending county champions, in their first fixture of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-653733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}