Faf du Plessis couldn’t control his laughter after he saw Australian batsman George Bailey’s unusual batting stance during a warm-up clash between the Prime Minister’s XI and South Africa in Canberra on Wednesday. Bailey came to the crease when the Prime Minister’s XI were struggling at 53/3 after the Proteas put up just 173 in their innings.

When Lungi Ngidi was in his run-up to bowl the delivery, Bailey had his back towards the bowler, with his right leg outside the leg-stump and left leg was placed around middle. Watching this, Du Plessis couldn’t control himself and laughed his heart out while fielding in the slip cordon.

Although the stance seemed to be unsual, but it worked in favour of Bailey as he cracked a brilliant half-century and put on a partnership of 77 with teenager Jason Sangha (38) to steer his young side to a four-wicket win.

Faf having a cheeky giggle in the slips at Bailey's extraordinary stance 😂 pic.twitter.com/q30H7chZeP

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) October 31, 2018

“The really simple answer is to keep it side on, the key for batting and getting your feet into a position where you can hit the ball as hard as you can. The key to that is keeping my back foot very side on, which is something I used to speak to you (Michael Clarke) a lot about when you played as well,”

Bailey was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia website.

“My tendency when the ball is swinging is to turn my hip to face the bowler, which then makes my hands lead out and it would get me into a lot of trouble. So it’s just something I’ve been tinkering with to try and make sure my back foot stays as side-on as possible. I’ve found something that’s working really well. Until it stops working, and then maybe I can come up with a new one!”

First Published: Nov 01, 2018 12:28 IST