James Faulkner is very quickly turning into all rounder
James Faulkner is very quickly turning himself into a batting all rounder now. These days in the Indian Premier League, he is batting 5 or 6 for his team Rajasthan Royals and he is delivering for them too.
Faulkner’s biggest strength as a hitter is his bat swing. It’s so fluent that most of the times, the connection happens to be perfect and the ball goes sailing into the stands and, his power too.
Faulkner is such an incredibly strong man that he actually does not need to hit the ball off the meat of the blade to get the maximum value for his shots. His half hits are enough.
However, he would be a little concerned that his bowling has not remained quite as effective as it was a couple of seasons back especially when he plays on unresponsive pitches.
On pitches which do a little bit, Faulkner can put some effects on the batsmen, but, on flat decks, he travels and that’s because he does not make the ball move after pitching on the surface.
He varies the speed with the back of the hand stuff, but, no movement in the air or off the pitch.
However, being the left arm over the wicket bowler, he gets that natural angle away from the right handed batsmen, but, if he adds that inward movement to his repertoire as well, he would be a far better bowler.
Nevertheless, if his batting and bowling skills are combined together, he is still good enough to find a place in any limited-over XI in the world at the moment.
In the final of the recently concluded World Cup which was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Faulkner was the man of the match.
