Your Cricket Season: 2012-2013

[Cabinet96]

Haha, I play proper shots and am pretty sick of not getting full value for them. Rather than drive to mid on and cover I want to be able to drive through them
Apparently I hit the ball pretty damn hard as it is so should be good fun.

I'll chuck some photos up when it arrives.

Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. I prefer to punch the ball rather than smash the leather off it. I.e. more like Kallis than Lara. But I've always been big for my age so can still strike the ball pretty hard, especially with a weighty bat.

[Burgey]

Dominating.

[Hurricane]

Light bat fan here. Need all the help I can get to keep the ball out of cow corner.

Actually, Mr Cabinet, let me pick your brains a moment. I have been left lead-coaching an U15 squad for the first time this winter (my experience is massively based with U10/U11 where the content is basics, introduction and development). Obviously "this is what a forward defensive is" won't wash so well with older ones - you must have recent experience of good-level youth cricket etc, can you give me some pointers on effective drills or particularly areas worth focusing on?

I am intending on structuring the (1 hour 30) session broadly as: 15' warm-up; 15' fielding; 20' skill input/drill focus; 30' net. That gives 10' overspill. However I am looking at a 10-week programme right now and thinking "where do I get five hours of good drills from?"

Here's a running between the wickets drill that will last for 30 minutes. We did it at high school.

1) two batsman
2) The coach is the bowler and umpire. But he just lobs the ball slowly to the batsman and generally stands in the middle of the pitch.
3) The batsman have 3 deliveries to score a run or they are out.
4) The batsman is out if they hit it on the leg side or hard enough on the off side that it would go for a comfortable two. They should be hitting singles only.
5) The batsman after hitting the ball has to make a loud correct call immediately or he is out. The Non striker is required to call if it goes behind square.
6) The key with the umpiring is to be brutal to the batsman unless the call is immediate and loud. Most batsman last one or two balls before they are out. And then another batsman comes in. Usually all eleven players are playing with 9 fielding and 2 batsman. Once a batsman is out he becomes a fielder and waits his turn to bat again.

[Hurricane]

Out lbw for 4. I thought it was missing leg. The umpire said it was hitting off stump. There you go.
the batsman never thinks it out.

[uvelocity]

umpires are stupid, don't worry about that. where was your front foot

didnt touch the coin, it landed tails, he called tails (it never fails) yet in blistering heat still we batted first

scored par, bowled em out. had to drag myself after two ****house overs.

[Hurricane]

umpires are stupid, don't worry about that. where was your front foot

didnt touch the coin, it landed tails, he called tails (it never fails) yet in blistering heat still we batted first

scored par, bowled em out. had to drag myself after two ****house overs.

Every lbw I've ever had in the past five years the umpire has claimed it was hitting half way up middle.

Never once have they said it was going to take leg stump out of the ground (which is still out). It is always middle stump mate. It was going to hit middle. Yesterday was the first time I have heard middle and off or off stump or whatever he said.

[MrPrez]

First match of the new term today.

They got 193.

We got 16.

It's ominous.

Got 1 off 1 - got runout as the dumb idiot who had already given away about 15 extras in his bowling (and he bowled one over) didn't listen to me when I said no to the second run. Screamed no and he stopped for a moment and then said "yeah, come on." By then he was nearly half-way up the pitch. I was gutted.

Got 2/20-25ish off my 4 though which was...ok In context.

[Hurricane]

Out for 1. But it was a good 1 as far as 1's go. I went in with 3 wickets down and 9 overs left in the game and the 4th inning.

I blocked out everything except for the 2nd to last ball of the day and got caught at point.

A couple of other guys got out so we finished 6 down.

[uvelocity]

w00sh00t

[Neil Pickup]

Had a really good net this afternoon. Having had a long think about a few biomechanical ideas on the back of the ECB coaches conference last weekend, I focused on making my stance narrower with the aim of avoiding "planting" my left foot down middle and leg; basically I get the feeling that I was unable to push off and cover off stump properly. Consequence was just as I had hoped; balance and movement much better and I hit some really sweet off- and cover-drives before finishing my bucket with a straight on-drive that I timed the backside off.

Watching the ball helped, too.

[Goughy]

As some may know, just over a year ago I had my face rebuilt after a freak cricket accident. Apart from one random game, I had not played since. Recently, though, Ive had a few nets to see if I want to get back into it.

It has been going OK but I don't have the extra two yards of pace that I had in my prime - which probably makes sense given I am 36 and have not played a serious game of cricket in about 5 years.

I took a vid at the nets last night and the answer for the loss of pace is clear. Obviously is still sharpish (it's only of 6 steps or so but I was trying) but only when I see it on tape do I see that I now have an old man's action. All the dynamic aspects have been reduced.

- Shortened delivery stride (bad hamstrings)
- Reduced range of motion on the arc of the front leg
- left leg collapses
- back foot bisects the crease rather than being parallel
- There is a hitch at the top of the action that breaks the fluidity

Here is the link. The first guy, in yellow, is a FC and ODI player.

Back in the saddle - YouTube

[Top_Cat]

All bar the first one fixable by just playing/training more, yeah? Unless your knees are shot?

[uvelocity]

not sure how you can tell that from that video other than clearly still sharpish

[Goughy]

All bar the first one fixable by just playing/training more, yeah? Unless your knees are shot?

It may take some commitment but, you are correct, they may be fixable. Luckily the knees are fine. My bones and joints are good, groin, quads and hamstrings are not.

not sure how you can tell that from that video other than clearly still sharpish

You can see most of those things, the original is of higher quality and the balls do not run together so quickly. But we also took a few close up vids of my action that I used to make my analysis.

The biggest concern is that the delivery stride and how much the left leg collapses isn't the same every ball and it leads to the ball not always coming out right.

[Marcuss]