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.

It’s a series of great sessions geared on teaching the players the benefits of:

• Alignment.
• Stability.
• Body Shape and Weight Transfer for different shot types and situations.
• How to develop an effective kinetic chain when striking the ball.

Here is a lesson that I ran with Adam this morning. It was set up to simulate playing spin using the bowling machine to deliver a consistent feeds into a good length. The batters are asked to use their feet to get to the pitch of the ball.

1. Do it your way

I initially gave Adam the intention of coming down the wicket every ball and for him to show me what his existing method looked like.

His first round was typical of what I see from a young player who has either rarely used his feet or just run down the wicket with no method.

He ran straight down the pitch and played the ball with his only hands and arms. His line of movement was consistent irrespective of the line of incoming ball.

It was good to see his starting point as it informed my next coaching intention.

2. Assess and move toward the line

We chatted about the benefit of alignment in 3 ways.

1. Firstly, the alignment of terms of his line of movement into contact.
2. Secondly, where Adam was is in relation to the ball at point of contact.
3. And lastly, the alignment of his bat path through the incoming ball and in the direction of his intended target area.

As soon as Adam got to grips with these concepts of alignment, he started to feel and communicate when he had moved appropriately to the ball and when he had not (you may hear that in the film). As his awareness increased over the next two rounds, so did his effectiveness at hitting the ball more cleanly.

Because his alignment of movement was becoming more appropriate, he found that his stability at ball contact was developing.

There is still a little way to go, but Adam’s understanding of alignment and stability is growing quickly.

3. Understand trajectory: Hitting under the wind and “flop” shots

Adam is a keen golfer, so I asked him what he did when faced with a shot into a strong wind.

He replied that he would shift more of his weight onto his front foot to keep the ball low. I then asked how he would play a higher flighted shot over an obstacle to land it soft next to the pin when he has no green. He responded with a shift in body weight towards his back foot and simulated his flop shot swing.

Hitting along the ground after moving down the pitch is no different to hitting under the wind on a blustery day.

A shift in weight will help elicit a different response in terms of ball trajectory off of the bat.

Adam loved the golfing analogy and went about his business hitting balls over the top of the inner ring fielders and then hitting balls along the ground with different shifts in his weight distribution and body shape.

There were no imaginary fielders in this intention, there were no dismissals. This intention was purely about Adam experimenting with his body shape, alignment and stability in order to find out what took the ball along the ground and what lifted the ball cleanly in the air with power.

I wanted Adam to experience success without fearing failure.

We can start increasing task difficultly, responsibility and consequence gradually once the skill is ready to be challenged.

Let’s go there next.

4. One to win off the last ball: All the field are up saving one.

To increase the pressure on each ball we chose to play 21 one-ball games.

The game was one to win off one ball. All the fielders are positioned to save the single. The intention is to hit the ball cleanly over the top of the fielders to win the game. Each ball constitutes a match.

We set the bar at 13 wins out of 21 one-ball games as the target.

13 or more wins for Adam and I pick the balls up at the end of the round. 12 or less wins and its Adams job to clean the net.

Adam ended up winning 13/8 after stringing together five consecutive “wins” in the last five balls. His alignment and stability developed as the pressure increased. Very impressive. It’s a simple yet great game that can be replicated against bobble feeds and throw downs as well as against Merlyn.

5. Hit different pockets

The intention for the first three balls was to hit the mid on gap irrespective of where it bounces using alignment principles.

Adam shifted his alignment to reach different lines of balls and completed three successful outcomes in his first three balls.

The intention for the next three balls was to hit the extra cover gap irrespective of where it bounced using alignment principles.

This one was more challenging and took Adam 10 balls to work out. Eventually he worked out that he simply needed to move to a similar distance from the ball as all the other shots in the practice but with a more angled alignment which allowed him to hit directly through the ball in the direction of extra-cover. His body shape and stability started to look a bit like Kohli or AB against off spin.

Once he had linked two consecutive balls, there was no stopping him and I let him finish the session hitting balls over or through extra cover. Shouts of “yeah” rang out around the bubble with each stunning contact.

Review

All of this took us 45 minutes. It was the first session of three that we have on the topic.

Interestingly, after our session, Adam reviewed the footage. He suggested that we start at Intention 2 in our next session with him starting from a guard that gets his eyes over middle stump rather than leg stump.

He feels that this will make his line of movement less acute when getting to balls on off stump or outside and that this will help his stability at ball contact.

How about that for review and analysis from a 13 year old!

The video confirms that he is spot on with his analysis. The intentions approach made the concepts of stability and alignment comprehensible. With his understanding intact, he can then take control of his own actions and the shape of the next session.

We will repeat these intentions in our next session, finishing with Intention 4 (Adam loves to compete).