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…)
Don’t strive to bat in an “elegant” or “pretty” fashion for its own sake. That which comes natural to you as a batsman is the style to follow.
Remarkably modern advice for the player, especially if you replace the words “elegant” or “pretty” with “text-book” or “orthodox”! The absolute necessity for a player to find out what works for him or her is now being re-discovered, as it was back in 1906 by the author of “Don’ts…”
And there is similar advice for the coach –
Don’t interfere with the powers of nature: all coaching tends at first to eradicate individual peculiarities and to cramp a natural style.
Back in November, David Hinchliffe proposed a novel way of getting the most from net practice, with what he described as the “horror movie” approach. I suggested adding a camera, to give the Blair Witch net session.
I have been looking for more ways to make net practice more competitive, and more realistic, but I don’t think our 1st XI will take kindly to “consequence” nets (5 press ups if you get bowled), and if we implement “if you are out, you’re out” net practice might finish rather early!
So we have been trying the “head hunter” net – setting the bowlers the task of identifying and ruthlessly exploiting any weakness they can in the batsmen. And the results so far have been interesting. (more…)
The Teesra 