This is part of the specialist fielding series of articles, for the full list of fielding positions covered click here

The mid on and mid off are the least glamorous pair of the inner fielding ring. You rarely see great fielders there and often find lesser talents trying to hide.

So can you really be a specialist mid off or mid on?

Local cricketers got a taste of rock n roll cricket as revolutionary coaching roadshow “PitchVision Academy Live!” rocked the Old Trafford cricket ground.

Featuring cricket, music, plasma screens, high energy and intense competition, this was the rock concert of cricket coaching.

A bad butcher with a sharp knife is still a bad butcher.

And for cricket coaches, technology is the same: A shiny tool can make you feel like you are going to make a difference to players. But in reality the best thing technology can do is add to good coaching, not make bad coaches better.

And at worst, technology can become a distraction from the coaching process. You can spend so much time tinkering that you get less done than you would have if you had just set up some cones and balls.

Sometimes you just have to practice alone.

There is no one around to train with but you are eager improve your skills. A bowler can go to a net with a box of balls and practice hitting a target. Batsmen are not as lucky because they need someone or something to feed a ball.

It’s a natural reaction to the unknown and a way of protecting yourself. But as a coach your job isn’t to live in fear of negative results, it’s to get best from your players.

And that means learning how to train your players in more than cricket, even if they are very young.

Fitness training for teenagers or younger though? Surely that doesn’t feel right?

Purpose: To practice stopping and throwing at a stump in a competitive situation

Description: Players are split into teams of roughly 3 a side. The first player throws the ball at the stump in the middle. He or she then moves to the back of the queue. The player on the opposite side fields the ball and also aims at the stump before moving to the back of the queue.

You know all good leg spinners have a well disguised googly; the one that goes the other way.

So you practice hard in the nets, trying to get the perfect ball.

So hard in fact, that somehow you forget how to bowl a normal leg break. You are stuck in the hell of only bowling wrong ‘uns.

Are you destined to become a googly bowler for the rest of your life?

 We all know how important fitness is to cricket, but nets don’t realistically recreate the fitness you need to get a big score.

That’s where BATEX© (BATing EXercise) comes in.

Normal netting rarely tests batsmen's endurance. It doesn't accurately reflect the effects of fatigue on the batsman's skill levels. But BATEX does exactly that.

Everyone goes to nets in the hope of finding form and improving technique. But the way most people do it is totally ineffective.

But Gary Palmer takes things totally differently.

In this short video, Gary explains how he uses nets at his CCM Academy to make significant and noticeable differences to players technique, mental approach and run scoring ability.

Click here to watch the video and find out more.

With just over a week before PitchVision Academy Live! starts in Manchester, there are only a couple of places left .