The Teesra

Category: batting

  • The secret batting drill that “they” don’t want you to know about! /clickbait

    The secret batting drill that “they” don’t want you to know about! /clickbait

    In the middle of last season, I was asked to move up the order to push the scoring rate along. I knew that I could not do this by batting conventionally — I do like a stodge!

    So I resolved to apply (my interpretation of) Julian Wood’s theory of power hitting for cricketers — not slogging, but a technique to put bat on ball, consistently, and with force behind each hit. And it seemed to work.†

    Whilst it is far from fully thought through, yet, there is some theory behind my switch from “batting” to “hitting”, and the practice (that clickbait “drill” in the title) to develop the technical and mental approach needed to implement the switch.

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  • Pairs cricket — with a CLA tweak.

    Pairs cricket — with a CLA tweak.

    I like to use the “pairs” format as a basic structure for SSGs — batters in pairs, facing a fixed number of deliveries, if you are “out” you lose runs, but carry on batting.

    But the immediate penalty for getting out can make some batters overly cautious, and we do want them to still play their strokes.

    So this week I tried out an alternative sanction – if you are out, you have to swap to using a thin/practice/technique bat!

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  • Session plan — off side batting, (mostly) back foot

    Session plan — off side batting, (mostly) back foot

    Working this term with a group of u11s, with the transition to hardball cricket in the summer firmly in mind, so I want the batters to become more confident when facing a short(er) pitched bouncing delivery. They will have done plenty of pull shot games and practice (bread and butter in soft ball cricket) but quite possibly nothing on the off side. Hence the theme for last week’s session was “back foot, off side”.

    The plan below is an idealised version of what actually transpired on the day. The practice and game both happened, but some of the additional constraints only came to mind mid-game, and I decided not to complicate the game by changing the rules half-way through. Next time, though…

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