Cricket coaching, fitness and tips - Drills

5 "Must Try" Hacks to Cricket Nets that are Proven to Grow Your Game

David Hinchliffe — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 05:24:00 +0000

All year, every year club, school and Academy players head to nets. As the aim is to improve, how can we make nets achieve that aim?

For the thinking cricketer, there is a list of things that make you say, "I must try that". Somehow you never get round to it and end up doing the same thing you always did.

That's fine if it works for you, but there is a famous saying; "do what you always do to get what you always got". So ask yourself; can you improve things?

If you can, should you try one or two from the list below this year?

What's the worst that can happen?

1. Plan ahead

What's your plan at practice?

Just by answering that question you will get more from your practice. It's all about focus. It's well proven that when you are focused on a specific aim, you are far more likely to succeed.

You wouldn't set off on a journey to somewhere new without a map or GPS. The same applies.

Don't rely on the coach to make a plan for you. They might, but it's not going to be as good as one you make yourself.

Don't think "I just want to hit balls" is a plan. It rarely is.

Think about what strength you can turn into a super strength, what weakness you can bring up to scratch or what new thing you can learn. Then go do it.

2. Warm up

Warming up is like flossing or eating vegetables: We know it's important yet not enough of us do it.

How many net sessions have you been to where there has been no warm up? Plenty I bet.

How many net sessions have you been to where the coach or captain has lead a warm up? The rest I'm sure.

In over 20 years of coaching and playing, I can think of exactly three players who warmed up without prompting. It just doesn't happen. It's is even still seen as a bit weird.

It isn't weird. Warming up - when done right - is proven beyond doubt to stave off injury and improve performance. If you are a fast bowler warming up is beyond essential, it makes you bowl faster. If you are a fielder warming up will get your throw quicker and more accurate. If you are a batsman warming up will help you hit the first half volley for four.

If your team doesn't have a warm up culture, or has one that doesn't work for you, then do your own.

Get there a bit earlier and do what you need to do before anyone else arrives. It shows deep commitment, it improves performance and helps you stay on the park.

3. Keep score

If we go to every practice with a plan, the next step is to measure how you are going. You do this by keeping score at practice.

The big benefit of measurement is you can see the big picture. We are terrible at remembering how we did, but recording how you did solves that issue, shows you areas to improve and builds confidence as you improve.

There are a million ways to keep score, with PitchVision a very simple way to track things as you go. Here are some of my favourites:

Bowling accuracy
Batting "net average"
Speed at running a three
Throwing accuracy
Catch percentage

There are plenty more.

You don't have to measure every little thing every time, but keeping a running score with testing is a powerful way to see how you are going and make adjustments if you need to.

5. Use video

Another underused part of practice is video. Yet again, we all think it's a good idea, but the practice is thin on the ground. I don't recall the last time I saw a player at nets actively ask to be filmed.

But don't we all have a camera in our pocket thanks to our smart phones these days?

Perhaps it's the stigma of asking your mate to film you. To that I say, get over it. The benefits far outweigh the shame. And anyway, if everyone does it, it's no longer embarrassing. So pair up with someone who films you and in return you film them. Use the PitchVision app on Android or iPhone and go for it.

The other option is to use PV/VIDEO. You can set up a couple of cameras in the net that attach to a laptop to record every ball automatically. Imagine being able to call up all the balls you bowled or faced instantly and filter them by type of ball. That's next level stuff accessible to any club or school. It goes into any net like this:

My challenge to you is to try these things over the next few net sessions and find out what sticks. Nets are much better when you are that little bit more mindful. Find out for yourself.

Bowl Faster: Brace the Front Leg

David Hinchliffe — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 11:30:00 +0000

One of the most common pieces of advice from top bowling coaches is to learn to "brace the front leg". But that's a technical term, and it's not obvious to everyone what it means, or how to do it. So, here are more details about how and why you brace the front leg to bowl fast.

Why brace the front leg?

Two words: Pole vault.

A pole vaulter generates enough power and energy to get over a bar five or six metres in the air. Much higher than a high jumper. The difference is the pole, which is used to brace against the ground after a run up, put energy through the pole and lever the athlete high in the air.

You don't have a pole and you don't need to be flipped, but you do have a leg and you need to get energy into a ball. The straighter you leg, the longer your lever and the more power into the ball. So, by keeping your front leg straight when it lands, you are creating energy. It looks a bit like this:

Why a braced front leg is an advantage

The idea is becoming more popular in coaching - thanks in no small part to Ian Pont - but it's still not standard practice. That means many players learn how to bowl without ever being told to brace the front leg for improved pace with no loss of accuracy.

In fact, there are even professional bowlers who don't brace the front leg. Even very quick bowlers, who often use other methods such as upper body power to bowl fast.

However, chances are you will bowl faster whatever you method if you brace. This is a huge advantage for you can get an extra yard of pace if you can learn the skill well. You may or may not become a 150kph bowler just by bracing, but you will certainly get quicker and you won't lose accuracy. This is true, even if you have an established action with a bent front knee.

How to brace the front leg when bowling

The first step is to check if you knee bends when your front foot lands. If it does, you need to do some work. So, get yourself on video from the side and see for yourself.

If you do need to brace, this skill is difficult to learn. It's especially tough if your action is well set. It feels "wrong" when you try it. It may even feel like you are going to damage your knee by locking it. This feeling won't last long if you persevere. Don't let it put you off.

Take some time to try bracing your front leg (also called the front foot block) from standing still. You don't even need to bowl a ball. Get a feel for that braced leg in a still position first. It takes more time for some than others but everyone gets it. Then you can try walking it through slowly and building it up to a jog then full speed. You can see the full drill progression here.

For some, this will come easily and you will see an uptick in speed. For others it takes more time but with effort you can get there and add speed whatever your starting point.

The Thompson Reaction Drill

Millfield — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 07:40:00 +0000

This drill of the week is great fun, a super reaction and decision making drill and we like to use it as part of a warm up to get the hands, eyes and “grey matter” prepared for the intensity of a coaching session or a match.

Whilst reaction drills aren’t new, (I can remember doing them with Alan Knott back in the 1990’s as part of England wicket keeping group) Matthew Thompson (One of our coaches) has bought some revised versions into the Millfield Programme in recent months.

Matthew is leaving us to take up a Talent Development Manager role with Cricket Wales after doing a good job with us over the past 14 months. Matthew is one of life’s great “games and drills” designers.

Most of Matt’s games don’t make a great deal of sense to me as a stubborn and boring old coach; yet the pupils seem to engage and enjoy the multifaceted and ever changing rules and objectives. Their engagement is far more important than mine so it doesn’t really matter if I can’t keep up!

The associated video shows how much the pupils enjoy the drills and embrace the challenge that creates around them. The great thing about this drill is that it incorporates decision making under pressure.

Matt randomly and rapidly delivers a variety of balls into the catcher from behind a cricket bag. The player can’t see which ball is coming next in the sequence, they have to identify the ball, catch it and then choose which of the 3 boxes (or buckets) they place the respective ball.

Skills developed include:

Reactions
Peripheral vision
Identifying detail/association with task
Decision making
Fine motor skills
Dealing with pressure
Speed
Movement patterning
Spatial awareness
Catching

and many, many more

Drill Set up:

Matt set up 3 boxes/buckets & has a variety of different balls to throw. There are 20+ balls per round. Matt insisted on one handed catching ONLY

Middle Box/Bucket: Tapeballs (tennis ball which has electrical tape bound around it to make it firmer and more realistic to catch. We use these balls in our tapeball programme at school)
Right Box/Bucket: normal tennis balls
Left Box/Bucket: Any other ball (incrediball, cricket ball, sand filled Ball)

We have to make quick decisions about whether to leave, defend or attack on each ball. We make decisions ahead of calling with “Yes, No and Wait”. Front foot to back foot. Straight bat or cross bat.

As with all the decisions listed above, we have found that players who have repeated this kind of drill at the start of each session become more adept at their decision making and also more precise with their Ball placement when dropping the balls into the respective box/bucket. The more you practice in a deliberate fashion the better you get I suppose.

Drill progressions

Pace: Increase the velocity of the throw as the player develops their skills.
Frequency: increase the frequency of throw to challenge the fielders developing skills.
Distance: reduce distance to further challenge the player.
Different ball weights and sizes: develop fine motor skill adaptability with different ball dimensions and weights.
Word Association: As if that drill doesn’t look or feel challenging enough, Matt also throws in some extra distraction in the form of word association. For example, when the player identifies a randomly fed golf ball is coming towards them they must shout a word.Matt asked one lad to say “Badger!” When he saw the golf ball and another to shout out his favourite cricketers name when the golf ball was thrown.
Dodge: get out of the way of a specific ball rather than catching it.

In the meantime, thanks Matt for providing our programme with your drills and games legacy. I am sure that the Cricketers in Wales will enjoy your innovative training methods as much as the boys and girls at Millfield School. See you soon bud.

How to Practice Indoors to be Ready for for Outdoor Cricket (It's Easier Than You Think)

David Hinchliffe — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 08:49:00 +0000

One of the biggest problems in cricket practice is moving from indoor surfaces in winter to spring and summer outdoor pitches.

It's such a huge difference in conditions that I know of many players who hate to have any kind of indoor net. They would rather do nothing. Why is this?

I think it's mainly about adaptation. If you spend - as many UK clubs and schools do - seven months with indoor nets alone you get used to it. Your style of play changes. Then you start the season on a totally different surface and your game is off kilter. It may take you a whole month to adapt back again.

Here are the differences:

Run ups are shorter, meaning less pace from the seamers Indoor length is shorter than outdoor. This is because of extra pace and bounce and batsmen who hit out forcing your length back.
The ball swings more indoors, meaning bowlers adjust line.
The ball turns less, meaning spinners adjust pace and line.
You tend not to bowl in spells, but in turns, making finding rhythm harder.
Batsman attack more, making finding a realistic line and length more difficult.
Impact is greater on knees and ankles, meaning you can bowl less and need more time to recover. The risk of injury is higher.

So, for example, if you bowl outswing, your indoor back of a length ball pitching on middle and leg and hitting off stump becomes an outdoor slow short ball down the leg side.

It's similar for batsmen,

Timing is upset by the ball coming on faster And bowlers bowling from a yard over the crease line. If you ever had an early season leading edge after spending the winter knocking the ball through square leg, you know what I mean.
Bowlers don't bowl the same lines and lengths as they would outdoors.
You don't bat for very long, and when you do it's against variable ability bowlers bowling in turns.

Fixing indoor net practice

That's a lot of problems. Can we fix them?

Yes, we can!

Firstly, it's about attitude. The problems of indoor nets must be seen as a challenge to overcome, rather than an impossible barrier. If we give up and don't go to nets, we better be gun players to justify no practice! And when we do turn up, we need to embrace the challenge with new ways of training.

Putting aside the issues with the basic structure of net practice (one batter, many bowlers, take turns) here are some simple tweaks to our cricket practice we can easily make to manage the transitions from inside to outside.

Play like outdoors

The easiest change to make to bowl and bat like you are playing an actual cricket game.

This might be as simple as setting your target length in PitchVision and bowling it no matter how the batsman plays. Or using cones in a low tech version.

When batting, you play like you would in a game. Imagine a score and a field and think how you are going to make runs in this situation. There are a load of games you can play to help with this like the 10 point net and the 421 runs net.

For even more realistic a feel, bat in pairs and bowl in overs.

Separate skills

A more dramatic way to make nets feel more outdoorsy is to separate the bowling and batting: Bowlers bowl at a target, batsmen work with throwdowns, Sidearm or bowling machine.

While this isn't always practical or desired, it does serve as a way to freshen up the practice. It allows people to work on things without worrying about anyone else. You can do technical work, or work on tactics without the wrong kind of feedback from the other end.

So, if you are a bowler who wants to bowl faster, you can do technical walk-throughs to lock in a better action without having to concern yourself over giving a batsman a hit. As a batsman, you can work on strike rotation of length bowling by having someone give throw downs in the area you want. Try asking a group of six bowlers to hit length on off stump every ball and see how it goes!

Slow down

One of the biggest challenges is to make the ball behave as it would in the middle: Pace, bounce, swing and spin are all different. How do we slow it all down?

Before I tell you how to sort it out I want you to consider one thing; how different is it really? Pitches and weather conditions vary a lot even outdoors. There are days when playing outside is not that different to inside.

Even when the difference is larger than usual, isn't adaptation one of the keys to good cricket?

For many, the answer to indoor net problems is simple; get on with it. Learn to be adaptable, build a technique that allows you to be in control whatever the conditions and then hone it to excellence.

That said, there are things you can do to help further,

Bowl a fuller outdoor length.
Bat with two mats instead of one laid down to dull the pace and bounce.
Turn a mat upside down to make it spin.
Use the bowling machine at a reduced pace to make you wait for the ball longer when batting.
Ask bowlers to bowl within themselves (it's easy with short run ups) for less pace and more waiting on the ball.

Finally, I would argue that once you get outdoors, the ideal is not not go back inside again. I know that is not always practical and sometimes - in rainy conditions - to get anything done at all you need to use an indoor net. My view is that as long as you try to get and stay outside you will be fine, even if weather drive you back in again.

Summary

Moving from indoors to outdoors is a challenge, if you let it be one.

There are many ways to manage it, but they key is to be adaptable. Use the resources you have to make the most of things. It won't hurt your game if you practice with match intensity and slow your roll.

The biggest mistake is thinking indoor practice is harmful To your form. If you manage it right it will always help you.

How do you manage it?

The Total Guide to Preparing for Different Pitch Conditions

David Hinchliffe — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 02:10:00 +0000

Do you worry that batting indoors will ruin your outdoor form? Have you got a game coming up on a different type of wicket from your home pitch?

This is the guide for you.

With a little careful preparation over a couple of sessions (and a warm up), you can get your feet, hands and bat ready for excellent timing from the off.

Here’s what you do.

Practice drills

In an ideal world, you will practice in the exact conditions you are going to face in your big game. This is not an ideal world.

Even if the wicket and weather are identical, you won’t face the same bowlers. You won’t have the same level of energy and you won’t feel the same amount of pressure. So what can you do?

Make it up as much as possible with some drills.

For example, preseason for my club is mostly constrained to indoor practice on fast, bouncy concrete. Yet, matches are played on soft, low wickets where the ball swings and seams laterally. It’s far from ideal and upsets timing.

We use the the following drills to balance things out:

Then, in normal nets we encourage bowlers to bowl fuller with outdoor lengths (tracked on PitchVision) and batsmen to try and get forward to everything.

This is helped by placing two mats in one indoor lane to slow the bounce.

However, it’s still easy for bowlers to bang it in short, so we use the instant feedback from PitchVision to show when this happens. This naturally pushing bowlers forward, knowing they will probably get driven but happy they are hitting the right length for outdoors.

And you know what that means?

More realistic practice for the batters!

If you do this kind of practice for a few weeks before the start of the season, you find you are better prepared for the change.

Game plans

So you have done some practice. Maybe it’s not perfect but it’s something. Match day has arrived.

What next?

Before the game, make sure you do a few simple throwdown drills to get yourself in the right positions. For slow, low, wet pitches you can use the no feet and one leg drills above. But whatever the pitch, pick the drills that work for you to get yourself moving.

Then decide your tactical approach.

I usually advise a confident and watchful approach for a few balls. It will take you a while to feel well set, even if your preparation has been perfect. So, take your time. Look to play the lowest risk options at first.

In our example of moving from indoors to outdoors, you will be surprised how many bad balls you get. Bowlers also have early season cobwebs. They tend to bowl too short after a long winter indoors and you can take advantage:

Back foot driving slow, low back of a length
Front foot driving half volley length
Pulling long hops.

With confidence and a touch of luck you can easily score at a decent lick by playing the way coaches have advised for decades.

The main difference is these days, coaches ask top order batters to thrive under these conditions rather than simply survive. You might ask if there is a difference. If you know how important mindset is to your game plan, then you know the difference is huge.

But let’s imagine your mindset is good. Nevertheless you find you are bogged down and not getting the ball away. It might be good bowling or that you are still not timing it well.

Stay calm.

You can go up a gear with simple tricks like this. You are still playing safe, just looking to take control a little more. So, you slightly increase the risk in order to get your engine revving.

Summary

It’s very difficult to prepare perfectly for different conditions.
Start with simple drills to get your technique in line with conditions.
Make sure you have a few practice sessions in conditions as close as possible.
Adjust your game plan to give you the best chance of success.
Go into the game with a confidence and positive mindset, born of good practice and a good game plan.

Crash Mat Spin Bowling

Millfield — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 08:38:30 +0000

As you may be aware, I love working with Spinners, especially leg-spinners. I’m lucky to be able to work with a few Leggie’s which includes 14 year old Michael.

I think that the shift from U13 Cricket into U14 Cricket is one of the most difficult transitions that a spinner can face. They move from 21 yard pitches to 22 yards and have to do this when using a ball which is bigger and heavier than the one that they used the previous season.

No wonder the ECB and Cricket Australia are adapting their practice to incorporate shorter pitches to enhance skill development in younger players.

I see many leg spinners at this age muscling the ball down the other end of the extended pitch which takes most if not all of the previously acquired skill out of the young bowler.

As a result of this, I have challenged myself to help young spinners to develop stronger actions which then give their fingers and wrists the opportunity to do the job that is intended (spinning the ball) rather than adding more “ooommmpppphhhh” to help the ball get down the other end.

The best way that I have found to achieve this is by asking the bowlers to run up and bowl on soft crash mats. Despite looking a bit odd, the drill really works a treat.

In this case, I decided to create instability under Mike’s feet on deep crash mat which overloads his technique and encourages adaptation by increasing stress and physical challenge.

The increased level of stress encourages the body and the brain to facilitate change, encouraging accelerated skill adaptation and progression.

The video demonstrates the process that we went through the other day. Mike was a little labored in his early deliveries, he was finding it difficult to generate sufficient energy and momentum towards his target.

Whilst we were focusing on the process (with him bowling into the net) rather than the outcome of the ball landing and reacting off of a surface), Mike reported back to me that he didn’t feel as if he was creating a huge number of revolutions on the ball.

So after showing him the first couple of Slo-motion videos, I dragged a couple of crash mats over to the net and asked him to repeat his process bowling drill into the net on the crash mats.

This implicit drill worked wonders for Mikes energy through the crease. The way he used his legs, torso and shoulders to “bowl” rather than “muscle” the ball was pleasing to see.

England Lead Fast Bowling Coach Kevin Shine is a big fan of this way of coaching his fast bowler. Kev looks to create problems to develop the need for the bowler to solve the problem. This is exactly what we are doing here with Michael and his leg spin.

The video shows excerpts from Just 20 minutes of one session. We will be continuing with crash mat bowling as part of Michaels drill routine tomorrow morning. The the intention is to monitor how Mike uses his action to support his wrist and fingers as he rotated them around the ball into release when bowling on the crash mats. We will then compare the action on the mat to his one when he is bowling on the gym floor.

Finally, once we are happy with his action we will put a mat on the floor and check out how Mikes action, flight and spin loom over the 22 yard pitch.

I’m hoping that his action will be strong and his wrist can concentrate on making the ball spin rather than helping the ball make the “adult” distance!

I shall keep you posted with Mike’s progress in the coming weeks.

Batting Tips: Score More Runs with Unfair Net Practice

David Hinchliffe — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 06:09:00 +0000

Here's a problem: Batting is unfair, batting practice is too fair.

What do I mean?

The biggest frustration of batting is getting out. One mistake and it's over, even if it's the first ball you have faced of the season. Yet when we go to a net practice we all do 10-20 minutes no matter what happens and walk away satisfied that we got a good hit.

The problem, then, is when you practice you feel no pressure and when you bat in a game you feel all the pressure. There is a huge disconnect and your practice time is wasted. It leads to losing focus, playing poor shots and fewer runs.

The solution is simple: make practice unfair.

The exceptions

Before we get onto "planned unfairness", there are some exceptions. Sometimes, you need to bat for time regardless of pressure. These exceptions are,

Picking line and length
Shot selection
Shot execution
Fitness

However, all these require a little more effort than just saying "I'm working on my shot selection today".

The first three can be called broadly "technique" because they make up the three elements of batting; picking up the ball, choosing the right shot to play and playing that shot. With a bowling machine you are working more on the last one, with bowlers you are working more on the first two.

It's more a time element than a pressure element. Hit balls and try to pick up the line and length early. Face the machine or throwdowns to hone the movements and timing. Measure how you know when this is working by tracking your performance.

The same applies to cricket-specific fitness, where you run in nets - with drills like this - to replicate the challenge of playing a long innings. Time and effort aare more important than pressure.

Unfair batting practice drill

However, if your goal is to make batting practice realistic you have to have built-in unfairness. Here's a drill we did recently with a middle practice to show you what I mean.

In this session we had a full field so batsmen batted in pairs and two bowlers bowled in tandem from the same end. Everyone else fielded with all forms of dismissal allowed.

Each pair had no time limit, and four wickets. Once the last wicket was done, the pair were out for good. To make it tough for batting - and to encourage good strike rotation - pairs had to take at least one run every third ball.

What happened in the session was unfair,

Most pairs got about 15 minutes to bat but it depended on the bowling and the running!
One pair batted for much longer than usual.
One pair batted for a very short time.

The short batting was frustrating for one of the batsmen who watched his partner get out all four times, including being run out because he didn't run his bat in. He was clearly angry and called it unfair. I pointed out that the nature of the drill is to be unfair. He had agreed to play it. While I understand he felt he was not ready for his game on Saturday and this was his only practice, he eventually understood the whole point of the practice was to be unfair. It showed him something about his reaction to a situation very similar to getting out early to a bum LBW decision.

Naturally, doing this every week is counter-productive, but working on how you deal with pressure - and unfairness - is a crucial element in your quest to better batting. Make sure you are harsh on yourself sometimes if you want to be the best you can be.

More Runs with These Shot Selection Drills

David Hinchliffe — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 05:44:00 +0000

Before you can smash that half volley through the covers for a searing boundary, you need to pick up the half volley. That's shot selection in action and - as batsmen and coaches - we should never take it for granted.

But how do you train for shot selection?

Learning the technique of a shot is much easier. You are moving. You can get feedback. You can drill repeatedly until you get it right. But it's hard to come up with "drills" for a process that only goes on in your head: While you are identifying the line and length of the ball, and then choosing a shot, you are not doing anything with your body.

Fortunately, it's simple to integrate shot selection specific drills into your normal training. Here's some things you can do.

Decide your shots

Start with basic principles. Ask yourself, "in an ideal world, how would I deal with different types of balls?"

This is mostly simple; you drive the full ones, you cut and pull the short ones. But there are grey areas. Do you sweep spinners or use your feet? How do you deal with a length ball at the death? What shots do you cut out when your team loses five wickets for 20 runs?

Stick to shots you know you can play at first. You may also decide to learn a new shot or two, but begin with what you have. And be honest. If you can't play the flick off your legs then don't imagine you will start now because you have planned it. If you only have two reliable shots then stick to them. They will get you a long way.

You can make these kind of decisions away from nets and games where it's easy to think things through with an uncluttered mind. Use this as a starting template to avoid temptation through scoreboard pressure.

(You can also use nets as "thinking time" but they need to be set up in a very particular way to be effective, so unless you are going to do this, keep the thinking and playing separate.)

How to adapt nets to shot selection

We know from research into elite batsmen that facing bowlers improves your ability to quickly pick up line and length. So, nets are ideal.

Where most of us go wrong is not tracking what happens in nets. We rely on memory and hope. We say things like "I felt good today" or "nothing went well today" when in reality it's usually a mixture of results that we can only see properly by reviewing the whole session.

So, when you feel you need a shot selection tune up, you can have your normal net with normal bowlers (or a coach with bowling with a sidearm). However, you also need a way to track what happened.

Tracking is best done with video, but you can also do it with hand notation. Keep a note of each ball and whether you chose the right shot (based on your own standards). Did you nick that half volley while trying to drive? That's a technique issue not a shot selection issue. You get a gold star for picking the ball even though you would have been out in the game.

At the end of the session you will have a certain number of balls you got right, and a certain number you didn't. Aim to increase the former and reduce the latter over a period of a few sessions.

Additionally, it helps if fewer bowlers bowl at you in nets because it give you time to pick up the cues you need from each individual action. So, if possible, get bowlers to bowl at you in overs one or two at a time.

When the session is over, take a moment to think through how it went initially and what you might like to do next time. Then between sessions, review your performance in more detail (look at the video, review the stats) and be sure you are planning ahead for the next session based on the results of the last. Imagine you are an airliner and this review process is your autopilot keeping you exactly on course by constant minor adjustments.

Warning: Avoid the machine

One tool for batting to avoid while you are working on shot selection is the bowling machine.

They are wonderful tools for technical work, but remember shot selection is all in the head. That means you need to be able to see someone delivering the ball, and you need to be uncertain exactly where the ball is going. The bowling machine can't provide that.

Clearly, your best option is to face bowlers. If your main aim is shot selection, a net works best because you don't have the pressure of the game situation. However, eventually you need to apply your skill under pressure too, so middle practice is also a good place to improve your shot selection.

Another good option is a coach. If the coach can bowl to your standard then have her bowl! Even if they are not quite as good as you want, getting them to bowl from 18 yards is an option. If she can't bowl to the standard you need, then turn to the sidearm. This gives even the most terrible bowler much more pace. The best option is to have the coach bowl with it. It does take practice but it's worth it.

Review like your career depends on it (it does)

Drills are great, but they are far less effective unless you build in a review.

So, consider it a golden rule that your session is not complete until you have done a review. Don't panic, this doesn't have to take a long time.

Spend 2-5 minutes after your net to think about the session. Discuss it with a coach or team mate if you want or quietly reflect to yourself as you take off your pads. Make a couple of notes about how it went and what you want to do next time. These can be mental notes, a quick scrawl on a pad, an entry in Drafts , notes in PitchVision, or 12 pages of feels in your diary. Whatever works for you.

Between sessions, go back to the results of the session and look in more detail. You should have tracked something over the session so you might be satisfied with "I improved this week, great!" or you can sift through the data with a fine toothcomb. That will all depend on your personality, but the key point is to have a second check over things before your next session and decide what you will do.

Then at the session, make sure you have let someone know your goal for the session before you walk in to bat. Again, there are options for this. You can tell the coach, tell the bowlers or write it on a whiteboard. This is a key step because it makes you accountable. You are more likey to stick to the plan if someone is watching.

Repeat, adjust and improve.

Warning: Fielding Drills Don't Work

David Hinchliffe — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 09:41:03 +0000

Better fielding isn't about more drills.

We all love a fielding drill at cricket practice. That rush you get when you perform it well and take the catch or hit the stumps is real and satisfying. You can see your skills improve the more you do. What could anyone possibly have against a good-old fielding drill?

The big problem is realism.

A well-run drill is efficient, sees lots of touches of the ball for everyone and has a specific aim usually based on one skill or a series of skills in a set order. There are no decisions, no critical moments.

That is not what happens in cricket.

You barely touch the ball in the field. When you do get a chance to perform a catch, stop or throw it's preceded by a decision - "is this mine? Can I get there?" - and usually requires another decision based on the game situation - "which end?", "cover the bowler or keeper?", "run in or play safe?".

A drill works on the skill and technique with a lot of volume, but also removes the important bits:

Decision-making
Tactical awareness
The feeling of the importance of the moment
Patience and focus

When you remove these things from fielding practice, you make it far less effective. Many would argue they are a waste of time completely for cricket skill development.

The fix for fielding drills

There is good news. This problem is easy to fix.

Add in decision-making to your drills.

This can be simple or complex, based on your needs, but the more you can add back these missing elements, the better your fielding will get in games.

Start simple by making less accurate or more difficult feeds (like fielding on an uneven surface).
Add a decision by having two or more fielders "live" in the drill and having to work together to see who performs the skill in the moment.
Add another decision like backing up, choosing which stump to throw, batsmen calling as you field.
Make skills more difficult by starting kneeling, lying, or spinning round. You can even just be off balance or out of position to make this work.
Ask others to try and put you off with shouting, or silence. You can add distractions to slip catches.
Force yourself to catch in unusual ways. Prefer to catch Aussie style? Spend a few minutes only catching English style.

You don't need to think too hard to add a little more decision to a drill. Each change adds more difficulty for sure, is harder to master and leads to a lot of failure. In the long run, you learn more and it sticks for longer than just repeating the same skill out of context.

While drills may not be ideal, you can still hang onto them.

Just apply the question "how can I make this closer to the real thing?" and you will not be wasting time at fielding practice. Quality trumps quantity!

Let me know how you go!

Tom's Short Ball Journey

Millfield — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 09:04:24 +0000

One of the biggest perks of the job as a cricket coach is to see a young batter take on a challenge.

Tom has done exactly this against the short ball. This time last year, Tom took a horrific whack on the side of the head when facing our quickest bowler in less than perfect indoor light conditions. Tom didn’t pick up the ball at all and ended up turning his head as the ball speared in towards his helmet.

The ball struck him without touching the helmet at all. It made a horrid noise and I quickly ran down the net to see how Tom was. In typical Tom style, he picked himself up, got to his feet and told me he was fine and wanted to bat on. I took him off to the Medical Centre.

Tom passed that assessment but I was still interested to see how he reacted to his next short ball. I was keen to test his response so on the following Monday we did a short ball session with 3oz balls on the machine with the odd ball being aimed over shoulder height.

When the higher ball came along, Tom would go into that defensive almost “foetal” position where you are hoping that it misses them rather than moving in an efficient and controlled way.

It was obvious to me that we had a problem. It’s never easy to confront this initially as the player rarely comes out and says “you are right, I’m scared of the ball hitting me when it’s short” but those of us who have played against real express bowlers will know that feeling which we have when ball velocity and direction goes beyond comfortable and exposes our levels of competence and confidence.

Even the most confident that I have coached have spoken about facing a spell of bowling which took them to the same place as Tom was experiencing in December 2016. Kevin Pietersen speaks about batting at the Gabba against Mitchell Johnson in 2013/14 where he was properly fearful and his normally ultra-attacking mindset shifted quickly into self preservation mode.

Our starting point was to build an awareness, even an acceptance within Tom which said “It’s OK to be a little scared as all players, at some point in their careers have felt like this. The best ones have worked through it!”

Building a plan

Now we needed to build a plan to layer up drills to develop technique, confidence and belief.

We started with feeding some tennis balls from the ground up into a space between chest and head height. Initially, I wanted Tom to be positive on all balls. I gave him the intention to “score off every ball” and he pulled and hooked at every delivery. This got his positivity going which was good after seeing the dread in his eyes when a short ball was bowled in the previous session.

We then added decision making into the drill. We stuck with tennis balls at this point but I fed a few high and wide balls in as well as some “hittable” ones. Tom had a go at the first ones, dragging them high up into the net and then started to leave the high balls and strike the “chin to chest” height balls. When Tom’s decision making and execution rate was consistently hitting 95%+ we both knew it was time to increase the challenge.

Cricket balls, different speed and height was our next progression all thrown from close with an underarm feed. Tom was flying now so we moved on to the Sidearm at 80% (approx 70mph) to see if the drills with the cricket ball underarm feeds could be stretched into a open and randomised environment.

Tom picked up length perfectly. Defending when the ball went into length and straight, leaving wider length balls, driving me cleanly when I overpitched and then crucially, striking or evading my bumpers. Tom had lost his “foetal position” when the ball was hammered short into the pitch and was now looking to “attack first; defend or evade second” – this is the mentality of a top player.

Our next phase, and the one that we have reached before our Christmas break was to increase pace (83mph) and take away the normal visual cues by using a bowling machine. I fed the ball and could be as random as this with my set up criteria:

Lengths could move from Yorker to bouncer and anywhere in between: Just by shifting the head of the machine as the ball entered the hole above the turning wheels.
I could change the shape of the ball from 3 away swing to 1 inswing and anywhere between. This is tough for Tom with no physical nor visual cues to work with. His anticipation skills are taken away; therefore, this becomes a reaction and speed drill in essence.
My aim as a feeder was to compete with Tom with the aim of forcing him to misread length and play inappropriately against the short pitched ball.

This can be a brutal session if the players competencies are not spot on!

The process that we went through stood up strongly against the challenge and Tom played magnificently. He picked length magnificently, drive me straight down the ground with ease and pulled anything short until he faced a bumper which was on the money! He looked to play it first then moved swiftly to dodge his head away from the ball at the last moment whilst keeping his eye perfectly on the ball.

That was a great moment.

Reflections

We watched that ball over and over again on PitchVision. The main aim of this was to emphasise (visually and with supporting languages) the journey that Tom had been on to get from being struck on the head in December 2016 and the understandable loss of confidence against the short ball to a point where he is back in control and dominating the same type of delivery.

It has taken just under a year to go through this process. In my experience, there is no quick fix when it comes to taking on a reticence against the short ball and turning the threat of being hit into a “opportunity to score and dominate”.

Initial honesty, ongoing supportive language, layering of drills and plenty of repetition have been the keys to Tom’s journey against the short ball.

I hope this story inspires you to do the honest hard work to get amazing results. Just like Tom.