Graham Gooch once said, I dont coach batting, I coach run-scoring. In a sentence he defined the requirements of the games highest levels: those who arrived there already knew how to bat; what they needed to know was how to prosper on the mean streets, where the pressure was greatest and where any and every weakness would be found and exploited.It suggested, too, that technique is a servant rather than a master, a means to an end rather than the end itself. Ugly runs count the same as pretty ones; David Gowers and Shivnarine Chanderpauls look just the same in the scorebook, if not the history book. And as Alastair Cook, Goochs most famous pupil, has moved inexorably onto the list of the all-time top ten Test match run scorers, and Goochie himself got more than anyone else across all forms of cricket, hes probably on to something.Like all good buzzwords, technique has been thrumming through Test series between England and India, and Australia and South Africa. Theres nothing like a batting collapse to begin the self-evisceration. Speaking to the Guardian for a thoughtful examination of Australian concepts of batting written by Sam Perry, Ed Cowan said: One of [our] biggest issues is the attitude of attack at all costs, which I think is defunct in Test cricket. The message feeds through that weve got to pick attacking cricketers and that you need to be an attacking cricketer to be picked.In India, Haseeb Hameed is the new poster boy for doing it right, the baby Boycott, a kid with arms like sticks who hits through the covers with all of the easy power of a natural ball-player. Ben Duckett and Gary Ballance, having got it wrong, well, how must it feel to be them, to keep touring knowing that your tour is over and that stretching ahead is exile, and in that exile there are hard truths to be faced, hard labour to be undertaken.They will join a list of recent discards, from Alex Hales to Sam Robson, Nick Compton to Adam Lyth, James Vince to Ian Bell, who have various hopes of a recall somehow, someday. In that, they can look to Jonny Bairstow, who knows the feeling. When he was dropped from the side he averaged 27. He was out for 18 months and went through what he called some dark spots. In the summer of 2014 he missed six weeks of domestic cricket with a broken finger and afterwards his renaissance began.Bairstow addressed a point of technique. He felt that he was crouching too low in his stance, which led to a rigid right elbow and back and made him lunge at the ball, a fault compounded by a low backlift that often had him playing shots well in front of his body. He began standing up straighter and holding his hands higher, the bat hovering almost baseball-style as he waited. He still waggled the bat, but it came at the ball from a steeper angle and because of that it arrived later, which meant the interception point was under his eyes, where he was perfectly balanced. He laid waste to county attacks and was recalled for the 2015 Ashes. In 2016 he has made 1355 runs, more than any wicketkeeper in a calendar year, at an average of 64.52.Youve got two options, he says of being dropped. You either run and hide or you front up.It wouldnt have happened without a technical change, but then the technical change would not have happened without the desire to improve, to escape that darkness. He had what seems like the right attitude to technique, that it existed to serve him, to help him score runs. If he wasnt scoring runs, then he needed to find out why.Dean Jones, the former Australia batsman, has published a book called Dean Jones Cricket Tips (The Things They Dont Teach You At The Academy), about the kind of small improvements players need to make to evolve from being good professional sportsmen to international stars. He analysed a typical Sachin Tendulkar century, which took 180 deliveries, and found that Tendulkar left or defended around 70% of them - about 126 deliveries.It suggested that the ability to stay in remains a great batsmans primary quality. His array of scoring strokes, however wide and thrilling, are restricted to one ball in three. What all players looking to score runs must be able to do is defend forward and back and leave the ball well. To score runs, you begin by knowing how to not score them too.Its interesting that the most discussed technical flaws always apply to defensive technique. Englands most improved players, Bairstow and Ben Stokes, have improved most in that area. The problems of Duckett and Ballance lie there. For all of modern battings pyrotechnics, finding a way to stay in remains the key to it all, as Cook and Gooch continue to show. Adidas Baratas España . -- Lou Brocks shoulder-to-shoulder collision with Bill Freehan during the 1968 World Series and Pete Roses bruising hit on Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star game could become relics of baseball history, like the dead-ball era. Zapatillas Adidas España Baratas . The 20-year-old Pelicans big man glanced up and smiled widely at the well-wishers -- a fitting end to a day he wont soon forget. Davis responded to his selection earlier in the day as a Western Conference All-Star with 26 points and 10 rebounds, and the New Orleans Pelicans overcame a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves 98-91 on Friday night. http://www.zapatillasadidasbaratas.es/ . Jordan Lynch, the all-purpose Heisman Trophy finalist from Northern Illinois, failed to make it into that exclusive club. Adidas Baratos España . After a lengthy wait, persistent rain finally forced the postponement of the Nationals game against the Miami Marlins on Saturday night. The teams, and a few thousand fans, waited nearly four hours from the 7:05 scheduled start time before an announcement was made shortly before 11 p. Zapatillas Adidas Baratas Chile . Despite dominating possession, Schalke needed an own goal from Nicolas Hoefler for the breakthrough a minute before the interval. The Freiburg midfielder misjudged Jefferson Farfans corner and bundled the ball into his own net. NASSAU, Bahamas -- At precisely 1:15 p.m. ET on Saturday, you could sense it was happening again.Not just from the modest gallery here at the Hero World Challenge, which roared with approval as Tiger Woods holed a greenside bunker shot for his fourth birdie in five holes. No, it was bigger than that. The energy, the electricity. It was emanating from all directions.For the third time in three days, Woods was whipping the masses into a frenzy, evoking memories of the old Tigermania days, when the mere sight of his name on a leaderboard would captivate that ever-expanding audience. He pummeled drives deep down the fairways. He rolled in birdie putts with the greatest of ease.For the second time in those three days, though, the frenzy dissipated just as quickly as it had blossomed.Woods parlayed a 4-under front nine into just a 2-under 70 that concluded with a double-bogey after he found the water hazard with his second shot on the final hole. It mirrored his opening round of two days earlier -- his first competitive round in 466 days -- when he turned a 3-under front nine into a 1-over 73 by making doubles on two of the last three holes.The immediate reaction might be to criticize Woods for these struggles down the stretch. After all, he has spent so much of the past three days looking eerily similar to the player who has won 14 major championships that its easy to forget just how rusty hes supposed to be.Of course, any critical analysis of Woods performance this week is a point severely missed. This is a man who a year ago believed his playing career might be over, a man who just seven weeks ago postponed his scheduled return to competition because he deemed his game too vulnerable.Those masses might have been intrigued about Woods return and just how much success he could have right away, but nobody was as curious as Woods.When asked after the third round whether he has already exceeded his own expectations, he admitted to not setting any tangible goals for the week.To be honest with you, I didnt really have much, because I didnt know, he explained. I hadnt played in a very long time, and I didnt knoww what I was going to feel like after each round.dddddddddddd I didnt know what kind of lies on the draw, Id probably hit some bad shots into some of these bushes. What happened to [Justin Rose, who withdrew with a back injury] could have easily happened to me. A lot of things. I dont know. I didnt know coming in.Oh, he talked a good game. In his pretournament interview session with the assembled media, Woods reverted to his old form and suggested that anything less than a win would be a disappointment.Winning, though, was never going to be the theme for this week. As it stands, Woods is 11 strokes behind leader Hideki Matsuyama, who appears to be running away with the title.Doesnt matter. This week is going to be considered an enormous success for Woods, whether he climbs into the top-5 by the end of Sundays final round or drops into the lower-third of this 17-man field.He hasnt shown any visible pain from those three back surgeries which kept him sidelined for so long. His swing has looked both controlled and powerful. His putting stroke, armed once again with the Scotty Cameron flatstick that won him 13 of those 14 majors, looks smooth and confident. He has carded 19 birdies -- more than one-third of the holes he has played.All of which should be considered a win as he heads toward one more round and takes that momentum into the 2017 campaign.Im very pleased to be back and to be able to compete at this level again, Woods said. Its been a very, very difficult road. You guys [in the media] were all here last year, and I did not feel very good. I was really, really struggling, and I struggled for a very long time. Worked with my physios and had to be very patient and was finally able to start building -- and here we are.Where he is isnt where he wants to be. Not yet, at least.The competitor in Woods wants to win tournaments again, regaining his prominence among the worlds best players. The realist in him, though, understands that this was never going to happen immediately. ' ' '