Obvious, really. But how often do you see batsmen doing the exact opposite, and hitting shots straight at the fielders.
Top batsmen take a quick look around the field, then proceed to thread the ball through the narrowest of gaps.
How do they do it? The answer seems to be simple enough…but with a subtle lesson for the psychological side of top performance. (more…)
It’s all very well to say “everything we do is designed to make a better cricketer”, but in practice, what does that mean?
What might the ideal “better cricket” coaching session look like? (more…)
David Hinchliffe has just re-posted an article on bowling actions (http://www.pitchvision.com/which-action-is-best-for-pace-bowling) which features a short clip of Fred Trueman in action.
I don’t think I have ever properly watched FST bowling, but as David writes, this is the classic model for the side-on action:
But what happens next surprised me.
Fred does not use the “pre-turn” pivot on the back foot, as described by Ian Pont and Steffan Jones, to allow the back foot and knee to point towards the target, to allow the drop-step and block.
Instead he drags through his back foot and pivots at the same time, so that when his front foot lands (quite probably a foot or more over the batting crease – perfectly legal, until 1962) his legs and lower body are perfectly aligned to execute the drop-step.
OK – not a perfectly braced front leg, but otherwise this looks like a pretty effective transition from tp1 to tp2, to me, with the bowling arm delayed.
Did we lose something when the front-foot no ball law was introduced, and fast bowlers stopped dragging?
The Teesra 