I’m on a crusade!

A batting longer crusade.

Times have changed.

Remember Josh, the little fella from last week who was working on hitting the ball harder with more control using a shallow rather than steep batswing?

My little mate Josh, is a 14 year old batter. Josh loves the game and is has one of the best practice ethics in the whole school. A top boy.

MS Dhoni first impressed me on my first India tour back in 2006.

You may recall a post-tour review undertaken by our U14 Keeper Batter, Jamie. Well, Jamie is back and he is the focus of a drill that I do to test a players psychological attributes as well as their technique.

I once asked Michael Vaughan who was opposition batter who posed the most challenge to him as a captain? The resounding answer that came back was Brian Lara.

Millfield school’s junior batting programme for Year 9 (13–14 year old cricketers) is focused on the fundamentals of movement, balance and how we can best generate power and ball speed off the bat.

Do batter and bowlers arguments happen every week in your net sessions?

That’s the modus-operandi for many club and school net sessions, isn’t it?

It can be no different here at Millfield at times and as a result, our coaching group aim to come up with net formats to facilitate as much “bang for our buck” in our competitive net sessions as we possibly can.

In my first few years as a coach I used to go along to coaching presentations and hear about the benefit of reflection and review.

Having been bought up in a “beer and chat” environment as a player, all this was a bit lost on me: A bit of utopian and conceptual thinking rather than real coaching practice that I could use with teams and cricketers.

Then I met Ricky Ponting!