The joys of sporting ambidexterity

From the day I picked up a bat I naturally – or so I assume – adopted a left-hander’s stance, but a year or two later played golf right-handed. This was quite usual, and probably still is, because children usually start with old clubs and the ones lying around tend to be right-handed. So it has always been the case that left-handers are far less common on the golf-course than at the wicket. Indeed they are still so comparatively rare that Phil Mickelson is known as “Lefty” to his fans. In contrast a couple of years ago there were for at least a couple of Tests seven left-handers in the English batting order. I wonder how many of them play golf left-handed.

What I didn’t know until I read an article by Andy Bull in this year’s Wisden is that either side of the First World War there was a campaign, albeit a modest one, to outlaw left-handed batting. It was said to be ugly and also time-wasting – because of the need for the field to change whenever a single was run. Fortunately it came to nothing. Nevertheless, it was a surprise to learn from this article that Frank Woolley was the first left-hander to score a Test century for England against Australia. That was in 1912, thirty-five years after the First Test match was played. So left-handers, certainly top-class ones, were still fairly rare in England anyway. Between the wars I think that only two other left-handers, Maurice Leyland and Eddie Paynter, made hundreds against Australia, and the first to do so after the Hitler war was Willie Watson at Lord’s in 1953. In contrast the only centuries in last summer’s Ashes were made by left-handers, Rory Burns and Ben Stokes.

There used to be a prejudice against left-handedness in general. Small children who picked up a crayon, pencil or pen with their left hand were encouraged and sometimes compelled to use their right hand instead. (This happened to me at primary school and for years I held the enforced change responsible for my poor hand-writing). Curiously on the cricket-field there wasn’t the same prejudice against left-handed bowlers: indeed the slow left-hander was highly valued because his natural spin was away from the bat. So for much of Test match history England nearly always fielded a left-arm spinner – Johnny Briggs, Wilfred Rhodes, Colin Blythe, Frank Woolley, Hedley Verity, Johnny Wardle, Tony Lock, Derek Underwood – and did so at least the regulations about covering wickets changed. Today there is Somerset’s Jack Leach who is interesting because while he bowls and bats left-handed, he throws in from the boundary right-handed.

This century has seen a new development, partly as a result of T20 cricket. This is the reverse sweep, a shot played by a batsman adjusting his stance as the bowler delivers, so that the right-hander has suddenly become a left-hander and vice-versa. This obviously requires great skill and fine timing. Yet I confess that, like those spoilsports in 1913 who wanted to get rid of left-handed batsmen, I don’t like it. I have three reasons. First, it is ugly. Second, I have never been clear how it affects the lbw law: does the leg-stump become the off-stump when the batsman reverses? Third, I think it’s unfair. The bowler isn’t allowed to change from right-hand to left-hand (which I daresay a few could) or from bowling over the wicket to round the wicket, without informing the umpire who will then inform or warn the batsman; so why should the batsman be permitted to upset the bowler’s plans by making this switch?  The answer, I suppose is: don’t be stupid, it’s a batsman’s game.

Prejudice against left-handers long ago disappeared from cricket though, I would guess, that there are still bowlers who dislike bowling against left-handers, and some right-handed batsmen who might be happy to see left-handed bowling banned. Apart from the fact that cricket-lovers now see beauty in much left-handed batting – think of Gary Sobers, David Gower and Brian Lara – whereas the curmudgeons of 1913 saw only ugliness, this must also reflect a change in educational philosophy; it now being considered a bad thing to thwart a small child and prevent him from doing what comes naturally.

If left-handed golfers are still rather rare, certainly in comparison with left-handed batsmen, this probably merely reflects the cost of golf clubs, many children still starting with father’s or mother’s cut down clubs. So right-handedness perpetuates itself. But there being no distinction between bats or indeed tennis racquets for right-or-left handers, the child may adopt whichever stance he chooses. My impression is that there are more left-handers in tennis than there used to be, which makes it rather surprising that you have to go back almost forty years to the days of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors to find a left-hander winning the Men’s Singles at Wimbledon.

Ambidexterity comes fairly natural to some. Brian Close batted left-handed, bowled right-arm and was a low-handicap golfer first, I think, right-handed, then left. But it can also be learned. What puzzles me is why so many football and rugby internationals are unable to kick with either foot, and it irritates me to hear a commentator excusing a missed chance at goal or a botched touch-kick on the grounds that “it came to his wrong foot”. England’s last-minute Rugby World Cup triumph in 2003 was possible only because by that stage in his career Jonny Wilkinson had taught himself to kick as well with his wrong foot (which was his right one) as with his right (that’s to say, left) foot.