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?

We he has had a great week. Not only did Josh drive his way to 36 runs against Gloucestershire U14’s last weekend, he also helped himself to 10 wickets over the weekend with his nifty leggies.

Top work little man!

The batswing is a work in progress, Josh is coming on nicely and in order to add even more value to Josh’s front foot shots I wanted to look at the way that he transfers his weight into his front foot shots. Josh is only 40kg so its vitally important he utilises every gram of that weight into the back of the ball.

I went and stood at the side of Josh whilst he was facing some throw downs the other day, it was really interesting viewing and something that I see regularly in young players.

As he stepped forward, the back knee would bend and collapse towards the floor. The knock on effect was that his weight was pulled backwards at the time when he was trying to propel the ball forwards off of his bat.

Effectively, very little of that 40kg was actually transferring into the ball, his contact point in relation to his centre of mass was being compromised and this negatively impacted upon both his power production and his control.

We had some work to do, so I created a little game - I love a game to build technical self-awareness - using the Jackson 5 as my inspiration!

Set up:

• Bowling machine or someone to throw accurate half volleys
• Bowling machine set up on a comfortable speed for the batter. In this case we worked at 65 mph.
• 20 balls.
• PV/CAM camera set up to video the batter from point

The tagging system

A tag is a letter, colour, animal or number used to identify a feeling or response from a delivery. It has no value attached to it at all. It’s a recognition tag rather than an outcome value or rating.

I asked Josh to observe the role that his back leg plays in each front foot drive shot and use the definitions below as Tags:

• Tag “A” was for a shot where his back knee bends significantly and touches the ground
• Tag “B” was for a shot where his back knee bends but not as significantly as Tag “A”
• Tag “C” was for a shot where his back leg remained straight at the completion of the shot

Josh had to shout out the associated letter directly after each shot had been played. I recorded the response on a white board up on the bowling machine stand. There would be no other communication until the round of 20 balls had been completed.

If you are interested in this method of coaching then check out the work of Timothy Gallwey, A magnificent Coach who taught myself and many others about a different way to teach technique.

So what did Josh learn by playing the game?

Josh hit seven A's in the round.

• He noticed that his contact point was too far in front of him in 6 of the 7.
• The other one was very full and he squeezed the ball between point and gully with an open face.
• The shots tended to hit cover and mid-wicket.
• The ball didn’t “spring” off of the bat as he would have liked.
• Six balls travelled in the air for longer/wanted than he intended.

Josh hit four B's in the round.

• 3 of his B contacts were made closer to his body. The other one was a “mental stuff-up” in his words.
• The ball felt better off of the bat.
• The balls tended to go straighter.
• He felt in more control.

Josh hit nine C's in the round.

• Five of them came in the last seven balls: A possible indicator that learning is taking place.
• The ball “sprung” off of the bat face.
• The ball generally went straighter, hitting the bowling machine and beating it on either side.
• No balls were hit in the air. They all were struck into the floor.
• Josh noticed that his chest was further forward in the shot when he reviewed his side on footage. His centre of mass (in grown up terms) had shifted forward.

Josh loved that 20 balls and we are now building that game into each session so he can groove it to death so his weight can transfer effectively into the ball in an automated fashion. This will help him to control his contacts and to generate power from his 40kg frame.

So where do the Jackson 5 come in I hear you say?

“A B C: weight transfer is easy as, 1 2 3”

Cheesy?

Absolutely!

But it helped Josh to learn a valuable lesson about batting which should stick with him for many years to come. That’s got to be a good thing in my book.