Twenty20 | Cricket coaching, fitness and tips

Coaching Lessons from the World Twenty20

The 2016 World Twenty20 had brilliant skills on show.

How to Finish a Twenty20 Game Like Kohli

Virat Kohli is an astonishing Twenty20 finisher. How does he do it?

What better way to find out that to examine one of his great innings in detail? Here is his brilliant 82 in the World T20 analysed. You can take the lessons from his method into your game.

How to Captain: Placing the Fielders

This is part three of a series on how to captain in the field. To go to part one click here. To go back to the introduction click here.

Along with bowling changes, field placing is the other obvious part of captaincy in the field.

The simple way to look at it is to put the fielders where you think the ball is most likely to go (not always just where it has gone).

How do you do that without resorting to the stock fields that everyone uses?

Before we get into that, a word about orthodox fields: They are orthodox because they have been proven to work over the test of time. Slips remain in place because batsmen through the ages continue to edge the ball wide of the wicketkeeper. Mid on and mid off exist because even the most extreme Twenty20 specialists play shots with a straight bat sometimes.

That said it's important not to mindlessly follow what you consider the norm. Just because every captain in your club starts the game with a couple of slips, a gulley and a saving one field it does not mean you should.

For the basic theory of field placing take a look at my article here.

Once you have that in your mind, let's go back to the basic aim of field placing: Putting your players where you think the ball will go.

How To Bowl A Yorker

Yorkers are game changing balls.

Any bowler. On any pitch. At any time. You turn an innings around with the use of a good yorker or two. Ian Pont thinks they are so important that mastering one gives you a blank cheque for the IPL. But it's not just at the end of a Twenty20 game where they are destructive.

A yorker is a difficult ball to negotiate, even for well set batsman. You can bring it any time you want to upset the guy at the other end. You can use it to break a big partnership in longer games just as effectively as you can keep runs down at the death.

So if they are so useful, why don't we see them used more often?

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How to Become a Cricketer, the total guide to achieving your cricket dreams from respected coach Monty Desai, is out now, exclusively on PitchVision Academy.

As you know, recently we announced the Rajasthan Royals Talent Scout and Academy Coach was revealing his methods in his first ever online coaching courses. Tody you can get your hands on three courses that teach you how to become a cricketer

Get them now. Click here to buy the online coaching courses.

Two Big Lessons from the Big Bash League to Create a Whole New Ball Game at Your Club

The Big Bash League has been magnificent from start to finish: The quality of the cricket, the size of the crowds and the production on the TV has made it a spectacle.

Here are some things we can learn and take back into our clubs, academies and cricketing associations.

How the Best Death Batsmen Score from the Best Death Bowling

All good death batters have options to counteract death bowling.

I have worked with some excellent batsmen who thrive at the death. They work tirelessly at developing skills around the three balls they are most likely to get:

Yorker.

Slower ball.

Bouncer.

So how do they do it, and how can you coach it at your level?

How to Score a Twenty20 Hundred

A strange thing happened in the final of IPL 7.

Batting first against KKR, King's XI Punjab had two in form overseas superstars ready to go in and start crashing boundaries. Maxwell looked primed. Miller was itching to biff it. Instead, a slight wicketkeeper with a traditional technique - best known for not being MS Dhoni - was sent in after 5 overs.

Wriddhiman Saha looks every bit the anti-T20 player. His batting was once said to have "the look of an accountant passing journal entries." Solid. Reliable. Safe.

He ignored this cliche about himself, and proceeded to smash a blistering Twenty20 hundred. Read on to find out how you can emulate this story in your Twenty20 cricket.

How to Score Fast and Hit Clean like Yusuf Pathan

15 balls.

That's how long it took Yusuf Pathan to reach the fastest fifty in IPL history. He hit Dale Steyn for twenty six in an over. It was a thoroughly modern display of power batting.

What happened in the 22 ball innings tells a story of batting, a story that can teach you a thing or two.

When to Put in Effort in your Fast Bowling. It's Not All the Time.

This is a guest article from former professional bowler, and current Strength, Conditioning and Fast Bowling Coach Steffan Jones.

Go easy on the hard work.

The only way to improve your fitness, pace and stamina is by stressing the body to the limit. You have to train hard. However, the body can only tolerate so much. Flat out effort is draining.

So how do you train and play hard without breaking yourself? Read on to find out.