How to take guard
PitchVision Academy batting coach Gary Palmer explains the basics of taking guard. For more technical tips try Gary's exclusive course: Improve your batting with simple changes to your setup.
You take guard so you know where your stumps are when you are in your stance. This is important because if you know where your stumps are, you know what balls to play and what balls to leave when you are defending.
Can indoor nets hurt your early season form?
When the weather is not so good the indoor net is a saviour to cricketers. The question is: do they do more harm than good?
I would be interested to see an experiment where 2 groups of players were split into those who netted in the winter and those who did not. I suspect at club level the difference in form might be less than we imagine.
Umpires Corner: Runs from a catch and slipping on delivery
Many times on the pitch (and after the game) we have come to discuss whether a controversial situation should be allowed or not. There are precious few players with a deep enough understanding of the laws for our arguments to be resolved, but many times it's the players who also act as umpires.
'The Map' Part 6: How to learn new skills from every match you play
Cricket is a great game in that you can learn from every game you play. The trick is organizing so that lessons learned can be identified and stored for future use.
Evaluating your game should be an ongoing feature of your map. By regularly assessing how your game is developing, you give yourself a better chance of picking up small flaws in your game before they develop into major problems. When developing evaluation routines try these techniques:
Is a cricket ball less important than you think for improving bowling speed and accuracy?
This PitchVision Academy exclusive article is a great fast bowling primer for coaches and players alike. To put it fully into action we recommend you look at Ian's fast bowling course to learn his drills and techniques.
If it wasn't for cricket balls, there would be a lot more fast and accurate bowlers playing cricket.
How to set a target batting first
Positive move as it is, batting first leads to some tricky problems for batsmen and captains alike.
Whether you play declaration cricket or limited overs (or even a hybrid of the two like the league I play in) there are two main problems:
Cricket Show 19: Technique builds confidence
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| miCricketCoach - PitchVision miCricketCoach Show 19.mp3 | 32.3 MB |
Kevin and David are back to discuss your cricket coaching questions in the new series of the miCricketCoach Show.
If you have a question or comment related to cricket technique, fitness, nutrition, tactics or psychology you can email the show here.
This week we talk about:
Case study update: Mental training
This article is part of the miCricketCoach 2009 Case Study. To stay up to date with their progress get the free newsletter.
This week, as the season approaches, we are moving our focus onto more mental aspects of preparation and playing.
Before we do that let's recap on Geraint and Naz so far.
The performance paradox: Why being a better cricketer is about more than cricket
More cricket and more training is not the fastest route to cricket success.
It's easy to think so at first glance. We already know that it takes around 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of any cricket skill. The simple maths is that the more hours you log the faster you improve. That logic is sound but it's far from the whole story.
Technique or mental strength: What's more important?
Modern cricket has almost torn up the coaching book.
