How does a professional slips cordon train?

[LongHopCassidy]

It's very nice of our captain to chip us gentle catches from five metres away, but how would a top-grade/FC team manage to polish their close catching skills when a match situation has rock-hard balls flying at their faces at 140 km/h?

The only thing I can think of is firing a bowling machine into a slips cradle, but surely there's a better way.

[benchmark00]

Cordon, guy with a bat, a thrower, edges through.

Use padded catching gloves so they can work on technique for a long period of time without worrying about getting bruised hands after dozens of catches.

[jonathanfs]

they have a special ramp they use now and it has slits in it you throw a ball like a slip craddle but the catcher tends to stand quite close about a yard away when ive seen people use it with someone throwing it on to the ramp however u can only train probs 2 people max this way. the other thing like youve mentioned in your post is wear they take the head of the bowling maching and fire it on to the ramp or the other thing is to use a sidearm pro which is just starting to come through in the last season or so. the method mentioned above is handy but often the person cant edge off often enough so its tedious. the only other way is to have a batsman who has a habit of snicking off probably ur no11 to bat against a bowler. do it like a real situation have ur bowler run up and bowl and he can throw the bat and snick off.

[Athlai]

They get Chris Martin to bowl at Phil Hughes and stand where Guppy would go.

[wellAlbidarned]

Think many of them do the whole bowling-machine-at-a-slip-cradle thing. England definitely do at least.

[slowfinger]

Just get the no. 11 to bat

[The Coach]

You can't use the edge, that's too inprecise [more play and miss than edge catches].
The technique I've used is thus:
Thrower, kneeling down on one knee [right-hand thrower would be down on right knee]. Batter 10-15 yards away [experiment with the distance], also down on one knee [right-hand bat down on right knee] holding bat out pointing to slip cordon with face approx 45 degrees upwards.

Thrower aims for the bat face, batter to flick / snick the ball with minimal contact - I would not trust this to a No 11 - batter to wear batting gloves too. Slippers should not wear any gloves, you wouldn't in a match, so why in practice - stop if hands hurt. Repeated catching will toughen hands up but pre / early season, little and often.

[benchmark00]

In a game you wouldn't take a hundred catches in a row so why do it in practice?

The padded palm gloves allow you to do practice the most important part of any cricket skill - the technique. The outcome is inconsequential, because if you get the process right holding the catch will look after itself.

If you hurt your hand after one catch and you can't do anymore it's not really practice either?

[vic_orthdox]

Pet hate of mine is guys practicing it where they are comfortable, when you should generally try to make your catches as difficult as possible in training, after completing a few basics. A good thing for this is to make the cordon take a step closer to the batsman each time they take a catch, and then if they drop it going back x number of steps.

Also, a good change up if you have a keeper there is having the keeper up over the stumps, and someone hurling fast underarms at the batsman who is trying to use a straight bat, as though hitting the ball back to the bowler. With two slips, quite close (almost spinner distance back) you are trying to hit the edge every time, rather than the face of the bat, and the keeper gets to practice taking balls, and edges, up to the stumps (as you'll miss 75% of balls) and the odd one being nicked with enough bat to go to slips.

[The Coach]

Originally Posted by benchmark00

In a game you wouldn't take a hundred catches in a row so why do it in practice?

The padded palm gloves allow you to do practice the most important part of any cricket skill - the technique. The outcome is inconsequential, because if you get the process right holding the catch will look after itself.

If you hurt your hand after one catch and you can't do anymore it's not really practice either?

Sorry but I disagree with most of this.

Working as a cordon for 20 mins should be adequate [even with sharing feeder responsibilities] - 1 throw every 10 seconds would be a reasonable intensity to provide 120 catches [not all will be catchable mind]. Four players in the cordon will provide circa 20-30 catches each - 100 is too many for one person and may well lead to damaged hands.

The outcome IS consequential as this will strongly dictate confidence.

Slip catcher injury is much more likely to be fingers rather than bruised hands and could happen with the 1st or the 30th attempt.

It a player hurts their hand with their first attempt through poor technique masked by protective practice, that's not smart either and are then possibly injured for the rest of the match.

Hell lets just use tennis balls eh?

[benchmark00]

It's not about injuries, it's about overcoming the problem of bruising to the hands and stopping any further practice, and by getting the bruise it will deter the player from confidently going at the next one.

Every high performance slips cordon uses these gloves, that's not to say every person will use them, but they're allowed and encouraged to be used.

A little google to show you:

[benchmark00]

So Longers, in answer to your question, that's how they train.

[Daemon]

Not surprised most of the real men are going without protection

[The Coach]

Well I won't be encouraging any of my lot to use them. If you want your players to use them, that's your option, but for me, special circumstances only, e.g.:
a) its a chilly English day = rare :-)
b) I'll happily let a keeper wear just his inners [looks like one of your pics]
c) player recovering from a hand injury
d) [only a maybe] early season when hands are not properly toughened up.

Man-up chaps ...

I do have a pair of these in my coaching bag but only use the left one instead of a mitt for close catching with the skyer when running a simple form of slip / short-leg catching practice.

[vic_orthdox]

Meh, there's been some seasons where the palm of my hand, along the line of the knuckles, has just blown up stupidly with bruising. I end up having to do a heap of tennis ball catching during the week, otherwise they'll be too swollen by the Saturday; and it really disrupts the gripping of the ball when I am to bowl.

With professional cricketers, playing 10 months of the year, you get that happening and, without the gloves, it'd curtail your ability to practice enormously.