One of the Australians hall marks in cricket is their intensity in practice.

For them it's all about getting as close to game pace as possible. Jeremy Snape demonstrated something similar in his World Twenty20 diary with the England team:

It's not long now until indoor nets start in the UK, which means the cricket season is fast approaching.

Great stuff!

It's very easy to waste this important practice time though: Especially at club level. So to help avoid that and make sure your pre season practice helps your in season form, here are my 9 tips to better indoor nets:

There is not much that is more satisfying for a seam bowler than steaming in, beating the batsman for pace and seeing the stumps cartwheeling back. If anyone knows how to tease that extra pace out of you it's Ian Pont: Cricket guru and fast bowling coach to Essex CCC and the Netherlands World Cup squad.

Seam bowling all-rounder Kelvin has been back in touch with me.

You may remember he asked me some coaching questions a little while back. He now has a run up problem which I hope to solve for him.

Part of a good run up is being fit enough to perform it properly. In Kelvin's case, his hard work is starting to pay off in real cricket performance: