There’s hardly a batsman in the world who’d enjoy playing well-directed bouncers at genuine pace. While most shy away from making their discomfort to such bowling public, I can assure you that almost everyone is wary of it.

u00a0To be fair, the margin of error while facing a good bouncer is so little and consequences of not dealing with it confidently so dire that manifestation of one of the strongest emotion — fear — is quite natural.

Still, some manage to conceal it beautifully thanks to the countless hours spent in the nets preparing for bouncers — ducking, swaying, hooking, dabbing etc. But then, there are those who have looked woefully out of place at the sight of those deadly ones. u00a0While they do spend a lot of time in getting it right, they simply fail to get the technique right, or it becomes a mental issue for them,u00a0or both.

Suresh Raina falls in the category of players whose discomfort is so well known that even the medium-pacers dig in short the moment Raina is on
strike.u00a0Only when Raina dispatches them for fours and sixes through the onside that bowlers realise that the left-hander is not that inefficient against short-pitched stuff. It’s only when the ball is hurled at serious pace (over 140 kmph) or the pitch has steep bounce and pace does Raina feel the pinch.

Ouch: Suresh Raina gets a bouncer from Australia’s Mitchell Starc at the Gabba in Brisbane on February 19, 2012. Pic/Getty Images