Have you ever seen this kind of awkward batting style?
It was a T20 warm-up game between Australia A and Pakistan at Adelaide in 13th January 2005. In that time, T20 cricket and free-hit, both were not introduced in the international cricket. T20 was still one month away to be played in the international cricket. On the other hand, free-hit was only used in some domestic crickets for front foot no-ball. In that time, 2 runs were awarded for the front foot no-ball along with free-hit in the next ball.
After winning the toss, Australia A decided to bat first. The incident happened in the very first over of the match. Australia An opener Brad Haddin was facing Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar during those free-hit deliveries. Before that incident, Australia A has scored already 3 runs without losing any wickets while Pakistan still had to bowl first legitimate delivery in that match (0/3 in 0 overs).
Akhtar bowled a full-length delivery outside the leg stump, which Haddin played from behind the stumps towards the deep mid-wicket area. It was another front foot no-ball and Haddin took two runs from that as Australia A added 4 runs on their board.
In the next ball, Akhtar bowled another full delivery but this time straight to the middle stump which Haddin again went behind the stumps. But this time, the ball was quite out of reach for Haddin as he waited to ball hit the stumps. After being clean bowled in that delivery, Haddin immediately grabbed a run for his team with his non-striker end opening partner James Hopes, as Haddin could not be dismissed by bowled in the free-hit delivery. By this way, Haddin earned only a single run (awarded the run as bye-run) for his team in that free-hit delivery.
Haddin faced both the successive free-hit deliveries with an awkward style, playing the balls from the behind the stumps. Yet those were not proved successful for Haddin at the end.
Watch the video of both those free-hit deliveries:
However, Akhtar dismissed Haddin by bowled in the fifth ball of that over.