The recent hullabaloo about the Kevin Pietersen "switch hitting" had me thinking a lot because while being innovative I couldn't see anything criminal about it as has been suggested in various media columns.

"Switch Hitting" is not really so different from the reverse sweep that has been in vogue for long; if you want to get technical then yes Pietersen did change his stance and yes, he did change his grip to be more comfortable in his shot. Rather than applaud his talent, people are questioning the "spirit" under which he plays his cricket. Ridiculous! Switch hitting involves a huge risk from the batsman in question and I think if he is prepared to take this risk, the administrators should have nothing to say on the matter, as they rightly decided in one of the MCC meetings. The batsman doesn't use any object that would give him an unfair advantage (e.g. - graphite strips on bats or the aluminum bat championed by Dennis Lillee) and doesn't get any outside help in executing this shot. He relies solely on his brain-power, anticipation and talent to pull this off and I was asleep the day they decided to equate using one's brain to being against the spirit of the game.

The technical questions raised by the knowledgeable(s) are quite right in being raised because the last thing you want on a cricket field is for the umpire to get it wrong or for multiple umpires to interpret the same action in different ways. However, none of those questions are un-answerable by a set of sensible gents and the sooner the rule-makers make things clear, the better it is for cricket. We have too many controversies over match fixing, monkey-gate, and the bullying power of in world cricket; we can surely do without such a tame one as switch hitting which, if anything, adds to the game.

The main question comes up about how the umpire interprets the off and leg sides for a batsman who switch hits. Is his leg his leg or his off side? Is it a wide down his leg (now off) side or a wide down his off (now leg) side? Is the batsman not being unfair in batting left handed to a bowler who has set his field for a right hand batsman?

Firstly relating to the batsman's unfair practices, it would be a brave man who tries to switch hit a Lee or an Akhtar. Scott Styris who actually was at the receiving end of the Pietersen switch hits is more the speed which the batsman can reasonably expect to hit in this unconventional style. Basically anyone who is Scott Styris like or below in terms of speed, including the spinners, are fair game for this tactic!

While the batsman does upset the bowler's planning by switching hands (and stance), the only assumption here I can fathom on the part of the naysayer(s) is that the bowler is an absolute chump who can't even tie his own shoelaces, and so shouldn't be burdened with such tactics by the batsman.

It is a bit like saying that a bowler can bowl either out swingers or in swingers and if he does both, then it is unfair to the batsman, or that a faster bowler cannot bowl a slower one and a spinner cannot bowl a "doosra" or a googly. Hey, what about that reverse swing; so it doesn't swing the way it should so the batsman has it 100% covered? Damn, the cheats!!!

"He who dares wins", is the way I see it! What about yorkers; if the bowler doesn't get it bang on, he ends up offering a full toss to the batsman who is probably going to cream it for six but the Akrams are greats because they take that chance and pull it off. Switch hitting is like that; if the batsman doesn't get it right, most probably he loses his stumps or gets a painful knock on some sensitive part of his anatomy. If he gets it right, it still doesn't have to go for six as Pietersen's shots did. It could just loop up for a dolly catch at mid-on (damn, or is it mid-off now)? A good bowler would be salivating at the thought of the batsman attempting something totally foreign to him since it increases his chances of getting out. If instead the bowler feels he cannot handle the pressure of such un-expectedness, maybe he should take up knitting instead.
The umpire's job is arguably tougher than that of the bowler here. The above mentioned questions about the off side, leg side, wide and LBW decisions are all good questions but not un-answerable. Let me suggest a "possible" solution here which I am sure can be improvised upon to remove any glitches that might be un-seen by me in the idea.

The batsman's mode of batting (left handed / right handed) at the start of the bowler's run-up will be considered as the "normal mode" of batting for that batsman. Irrespective of whether he changes his stance or grip for switch hitting, his off and leg sides for the purposes of the umpire's decisions remain the same as would be considered as per the "normal mode".

The LBW law remains the same whereby if the ball pitches outside the leg stump (in normal mode) or hits him outside the line of off stump (in normal mode) then it cannot be a LBW even if he has changed his stance; it will however be a LBW if the ball hits the batsman in line with the stumps after pitching in line with the stumps or outside off stump (in normal mode) even if the batsman has switched. The factors of height don't change whether the batsman is left handed or right.

Similarly any ball down the leg side (in normal mode) is wide if not connected by the batsman and any ball down the off side (which might be the leg side of the switch hitting batsman) will not be wide unless it is wide enough to be called so for a batsman in normal mode.

It is confusing to think of, no doubt, but once you decide that the off side and leg sides do not change, it is no longer as confusing. I can see no simpler solution than keeping the laws as they are. The one possible glitch I can see in this is if the batsman switches a fraction of a second after the bowler starts his run up, the umpire is really in no position to notice as his back would be towards the batsman. Again, it is not an insurmountable hurdle as if need be, a batsman's normal mode can be decided at the start of an over where he tells the umpire beforehand what his "normal mode" is. Rather, if there is a change then he tells the umpire otherwise he doesn't. Or, the simplest of them all is the decision that a batsman's normal mode is what is on his official cricketing record.

Yes, it is confusing as hell for the umpires and it seems cruel to add this new dimension to their already tough lives on the field but it has to be remembered that cricket is not played for the umpires but for the players; anything that helps the players give something extra to the game has to be accommodated even if it makes the lives of umpires more difficult. Billy Bowden making all kinds of gestures in signaling a four or six is entertaining but Pietersen switch hitting the bowlers is on a different dimension altogether. It could be great for cricket if more cricketers come up with more innovations like this; maybe the purists will not be happy but it is all about the entertainment in the end.

Cricket is not just about who can hit the furthest or bowl the fastest. I am glad to see tactics like switch hitting which show the smarter side of the players. It is always good to see that it is not all brawn out there.