I keep an empty tin can in my cricket bag. I hate it but I keep it in there all the same.

Having that can makes me thrilled and terrified to be a death bowler; to find out why I need to tell you a story.

Two seasons ago I was my team’s reluctant death bowler. Frankly, I was poor. Despite leaking runs we didn’t have a good bowler to take my place. My team were stuck with me. I would stand at the top of my mark in the last few over dreading how my figures would look.

Cricket hurts.

I’m not talking about a fast bowler putting one into your ribs, or even turning an ankle over. That can happen at any age.

I’m talking about the chronic build up of aches and pains of a career. The ones where you get up in the morning and think:

“Man, I hurt so bad, surely no game is worth this much pain”.

If you are cricket tragic you put up with it.

A new phrase is creeping in to cricket: Laptop coaching. And it’s not seen as a good thing.

It’s all pervasive in professional cricket: Analysts record every ball of matches and coaches pour over the stats looking for trends. Innings and bowling spells are recorded and catalogued for later analysis. Critics say the approach is responsible for creating robotic cricketers with no life skills beyond the ability to ‘hit the right areas’.

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

Purpose: Practice the underarm pickup and throw in a pressure situation.

Description:

Do you want to become the bowling spearhead of your team?

I can understand the feeling. I had the same one but things weren’t working out for me. Then something happened which made me into the strike bowler and the pace spearhead of my team. Read on, learn from my experiences and help yourself to become a strike bowler too.

A couple of years ago I was a fast bowler with decent (not furious) pace. I used to open the bowling and take wickets swinging the new ball.

I was playing a game not long after the review system was introduced to Test matches. Without TV cameras and technology at our game there was no chance of a review. Yet at the first dodgy LBW decision the first slip turned to me and made the now familiar T sign. We both quietly giggled and hope the umpire hadn’t seen the dissent.

That story tells me all I need to know about how TV has changed how we approach cricket, even when we don’t have cameras and Hawkeye at our games.

We all recognise the importance of fitness in our lives. It’s not just about being better on the cricket field. Regular training makes you healthier and, let’s face it, damn good looking.

Yet fitness is so often the cause of mistakes that lead to the opposite: weaker, more injury-prone, run down and looking awful.

By now, like me, you will have adopted Watsonian CC as your 2^nd team and willing them to success as well as learning a few things along the way (Leave a comment here if you are, I'd love to see the readers backing the side).