Backlift is the term used in cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, describing how a batsman lifts his bat in preparation for hitting the ball

Cricket ball

A cricket ball is a hard, solid leather ball used to play cricket. Constructed of cork and leather, a cricket ball is heavily regulated by cricket law at first class level...

.

While the bat should be raised as vertically as possible, coaching manuals often suggest that correct technique is for the bat to be slightly angled from the perpendicular; a common instruction is to point the face of the bat in the direction of first or second slip .

Some players (notably, in recent times, Brian Lara

Brian Lara

Brian Charles Lara, TC, OCC, AM is a former West Indian international cricket player. Lara is generally regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time...

) have employed an exaggerated backlift. Others, who have employed the more unorthodox open stance, such as Peter Willey

Peter Willey

Peter Willey is a former English cricketer, who played as a right-handed batsman and right-arm offbreak bowler. In and out of the England team, he interrupted his international career for three years by taking part in the first of the England players' South African rebel tours in 1982...

, had a more abbreviated backlift.