There's a battle for the heart and soul of cricket right now.

It's a battle that is shaping cricketers and cricket teams at every level. Get it right and you could be pushing yourself to new heights. Get it wrong and you will be languishing on the sidelines forever.

Each side thinks they know all the answers. if the other side just listened to common sense for a moment, they say in frustration, we would all realise the truth. We would all be better players.

So what is the truth?

Which side should you take in this epic war?

The power of tradition

Perhaps the appeal of tradition is a strong one to you. The game is hundreds of years old. There are millions of players and games that have developed a strong tradition for the right way to play.

Cricket, for traditionalists, is based on doing what works based on the evidence of history. This makes sense. There is a strong precedent for playing with a straight bat, for bowling yorkers at the death of limited over games, for jogging for fitness and for walking in with the bowler in the field.

You and I could sit down together and come up with a list of a hundred more well-spoken maxims about the proper way to play the game. There's even a phrase for it, "it's just not cricket".

The attraction of progress

One the other side are the progressives with an equally attractive sales pitch. The progressive promise is that we throw away the shackles of tradition and search for new ways to do old things.

In your search you uncover better methods, methods that allow you to get the edge over you opponent by making you score more runs at a faster rate, or take more wickets for less runs.

This is the land of data analysis on laptops, reverse sweeps, slower ball bouncers, psychological testing and fancy strength and conditioning. It's experimental stuff but it's worth the risk when your new method pays off big time.

Which is best?

You'll often hear critics of top level cricket take the traditionalist view. They will argue that nothing beats bowling at the top of off stump because that's how we have done it for over 150 years. They call modern terms like "hitting areas" silly double-speak that makes less sense than the proper terms. The underlying implication is that all we need to do is return to simpler times and stop over-analysing everything.

There is certainly a case for this argument. At club and school level players are rarely paid. The last thing you want is to finish your work for the day at the office and then get more talk of "performance indicators" at the cricket. You just want to have a bat and bowl and forget the troubles of the week.

Of course, you want to do well on the pitch too. You are prepared to practice hard and listen to the coach to get there. And if the coach reassures you in plain clear ways that she will help you master the basics, then what need do you have for fancy new-fangled methods?

The progressives will argue back, and argue hard.

They will say that traditional methods often are not always the best. To stick blindly to the ideas of your father and grandfather keeps you in the same pattern while the rest of the world moves on. They will point out just how much cricket has changed, and just how different people are. How can one size ever fit everyone?

They will say that language is just as important to them as it is to traditionalists. The difference is that they can use the words of tradition and progress to be more precise. Take the ideas of process and outcome. Traditional dictates you can't use these words and scoff at the lack of clarity. Progressives use the words to make better cricketers.

As you can see, it's a bloody battle. Both sides use the weaknesses of the other to prove their point. They take examples of bad results from the other side to prove their methods work better than the other.

Take from both sides

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle of this war: I'm neither a full traditionalist or progressive. That's because I can see both sides simply want the same thing, to be better at cricket.

Sometimes I baulk like a traditionalist when I hear people speak like they have just come out of a management conference. Sometimes I sigh like a progressive when I hear coaches speak in old-fashioned traditional ways that have been long disproven. I flip-flop to find a balance.

In my mind, it's about being mindful rather than taking a staunch position. Does a method work in your coaching environment (or situation if you want to be more traditional)? It matters little if the method is a tradition like playing straight or a new idea like switch hitting. All that matters is that it works.

So, do your research and find out. You can talk to others, read ideas here on PitchVision Academy and even experiment yourself. Sometimes things will not work. Other times they will not.

But when you use both sides to your advantage you can become that rare creature: an effective.