Last week I introduced the 4 elements that define mental toughness. Today we move on to understanding and developing "Inner Drive".

Players scoring high on inner drive are completely self-motivated individuals in any given situation.

When you strive for the edge you hear a lot of new ideas. "Sensory development" is one of these ideas. On the PitchVision Academy Cricket Show we often ask questions like, "Does eye training really work, or is it a myth?" and "Can we improve our communication methods by removing our auditory systems?"

All very good questions, but when I tested them, in a series of training sessions recently, I wasn't interested in answering any of these questions.

What was I doing?

When someone says that a player is or isn’t mentally tough I always reply with "what is mental toughness"?

This was a question that was asked to England's best players back in the mid-2000s by Dr Steve Bull and his Sports Psychology team. The findings of those discussions ultimately split the subject of mental toughness into 4 sub-categories: Fight, Inner Drive, Critical Moment Control and Resilience

By breaking the huge subject down, we are able to attribute characteristics that define each of these 4 sub-categories. As coaches, we can make interventions and build strategies into our planning that help to develop and challenge these capacities with our players and teams.

So let's take "fight" and delve a little deeper into the associated characteristics:

Ex-England coach Duncan Fletcher loves slip catching practice. He comes alive as he edges the ball to the slip cordon and encourages the players to strive for more consistency, more commitment and ultimately, more brilliance.

But it was not always the case. Fletch inherited a slip cordon in 2000 that was less than brilliant. He told me that many of the players were happy to let the ball bounce just infront of them instead of diving forward and attempting the catch.

He used to call poor commitment to this kind of ball "Old England" .

This is a guest posted drill from Laurie Ward of Complete Cricketer Academy.

This is the most terrifying batting drill you will ever experience. We call it "The Nazgul" because in Lord of the Rings, nothing is as scary as a Nazgul!

For the coach, it brings out the inner sadist. For the players, it's a way to work on hitting the ball into the right areas, even when you are exhausted and just want it to stop. It won't because there is no respite.

Have you noticed that some batters set up differently?

Bent knees and a slightly wider base are notable in Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Smith and Gary Ballance. They move completely differently. Their movements don't relate to those coaching words and terms that I have often been exposed to in during my 22 year coaching career.

How do you coach players like this when they struggle with technical issues?

Here's a really simple trick to get a lot more out of your net practice without the worry of setting up a camera: HTC Zoe.

Zoe is an app that works on Google's Android system phones that takes 5 second video clips. It's a manual way to copy the automatic functionality of PV/ONE: You can capture video of batting and bowling just by hitting record. Then once you have the video, you can pick out high quality still images that get taken at the same time. From here you can really highlight any technical points.

You can then get to drilling out flaws, and being smug about your strengths.

Andrew Strauss reminded today of a brilliant bowling machine drill which we were introduced to by Shiv Chanderpaul.

This is a guest post on batting skills from Laurie Ward of the Complete Cricketer Academy.

If you were offered the wisdom of Sunil Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting and Brian Lara, I am guessing that you might be interested?

These gems are extremely simple and have been the cornerstone of our batting coaching at The Complete Cricketer Academy, with unbelievable results and a better understanding and "feel" for the players.

Coach Sam Lavery talks about post-season planning before you put your gear away for a few months.

As the season comes to an end, regaining evenings and weekends is an attractive prospect. But as the final match passes, is is there still one final push we can give?

Absolutely! The final wrap up of the season is as valuable as those last words before you players take to the field for their first game.