Comedian Chris Rock regularly fills stadiums with his stand-up comedy act. Amazingly, it’s nothing to do with being naturally funny.

Rock is known for his ruthless practice skills. He is a joke craftsman; leaving nothing to chance when he has to perform to 20,000 people own his own.

These are skills you can copy to become a classy cricketer and reach your equivalent of having Madison Square Garden rolling in the aisles.

The show takes on a Presidential air this week as we hand it over to a full length interview with Ross Brooks.

Ross is the President of Watsonian CC in Edinburgh, our case study club. Like many clubs Watsonian face challenges both on and off the field and Ross is the guy who has to make things run as smoothly as possible.

We get an insight into how he does things this week, as well as find out how Watsonian are doing at the halfway stage in the season. 

Today’s article is a guest post from personal trainer Brian Wardle.

Cricket requires power: power to hit, power to bowl the ball with pace or with revolutions, power to sprint.

If there is one guy who knows about power its Louis Simmons.

He for decades he has got people powerful with a training methodology called the conjugate system.

It’s allowed his gym to produce powerlifters who regularly break records in the squat, deadlift and bench press.

This drill is part of the PitchVision Academy fielding drills series, for more in this series click here.

Purpose: To practice fielding against drives as well as grooving batting drive technique.

Description: Players are split into teams of 6. The batting team are aiming to score as many runs as possible from a bobble feed from the coach.

Dead pitches make for very dull cricket: Unless you learn how to spice things up.

My club is a perfect example. Pitches that have no pace or bounce means batsmen have plenty of time to handle stock line and length bowling.

Slips have little chance of a catch carrying.

It’s why our bowlers have started working on variations that help on slower pitches when it’s a stalemate:

This article is part of the “How to Improve Your Batting Shot Selection” series. To see the full list of shots click here.

In 2002 Michael Vaughan was in imperious form and it was a pull shot that set the tone.

The Boss is on the show again this week as we discuss the new Australian Big Bash League and how it might influence club cricket.

Plus former England International Roaslie Birch is on the phone talking about her work introducing young people to cricket with the Chance to Shine charity.

But this is a cricket coaching podcast, so we also answer your questions on how to bowl with a slingy bowling action like Malinga, and how to increase your pace as a spin bowler without losing revolutions on the ball.

Does your club train in the way that gets the best results?

Given the chance, I’m sure you would be quick to change some frustration or other you feel about training.

After all, you read PitchVision Academy, you know the secrets.

But changing culture is difficult; it takes strong personalities and a groundswell of support. Most people take the easy option; keeping quiet and getting increasingly annoyed when team results are erratic.

We all agree that good players are also mentally strong players. Yet despite the reams of coaching materials on technique and fitness, there is no system for developing confident cricketers.

You may, like me, have found yourself frustrated with players.

Despite your best efforts individuals are unable to maintain standards throughout the summer. Form is erratic and tails off at the back end of the season just when it’s most needed.

What I didn’t realise was that the training plan was the problem.

Gary Palmer, master coach, has revealed the inner workings of his coaching methods.

With over 20 years experience of coaching players to batting success from juniors to first-class level; Gary is the go-to guy for advice on how to teach batting perfection.

Like a crazy but brilliant scientist, Gary has meticulously kept his findings in a notebook that has built up over the years into a complete system.