A few years ago, only the best fielders would be diving, throwing down stumps and catching everything. Now anyone who can't do it is seen as a passenger.

So, that means your training needs to go up a level too.

It's not enough to do a few catches before nets anymore. You have to recreate and repeat match intensity skills. Here are four simple ways you can put into action right away.

Know where you are

It's common when things go a bit wrong in the field to say "we fielded badly". As you know, we really only accurately remember 40% of the game, and have a bias towards the last few overs. If you rely on your memory you will go to training with the wrong goal and an overall downer.

So, instead get someone (scorer or coach) to note down accurately the things you did wrong and the things you did well. In our last game I recorded good fielding and poor fielding. Despite the general opinion being we fielded badly, the score was actually 32-18 to good.

From here, you can see what areas are strongest, and what areas are weaker. Say you catch everything on the boundary. You can step up practice to start working on taking diving catches on the rope instead. Step it up. Meanwhile, you can focus on doing more work on weaker areas to bring them up to speed.

Get more bang for your buck

Speaking of more work, fielding is an area where more volume makes a noticeable difference. If you take 100 catches in training you are more likely to catch the ball in your game. So get drilling.

If you are looking to do volume, then the key is drills that involve a lot of ball work in a short amount of time. The realism is less important than just getting the ball in the hand and throwing it. So, drills will be,

• Small numbers, even just pairs.
• Set up to minimise the number of pauses (lots of balls basically).
• Less about the challenge, and more about the speed.

This last point is important. Fielding can be boring in games, you can touch the ball once on the match and it's to take the winning catch. That's a mental challenge to stay focused. However, in volume work, you don't consider this. You just keep pumping up balls and catching them and a level that is challenging but quick. The golden rule is to keep balls going all the time to make sure that everyone is doing the skill as much as possible in the time available. Nothing else matters more in volume training.

Boost the realism

Volume is good, but it's also important to take time to make practice realistic too. So, take some time to recreate game scenarios in fielding practice, but you take less balls overall.

• Use middle practice as a way to focus on what will happen in a game; less balls fielded and more concentration needs.
• Do drills where the feeder is realistically hitting the ball like a batter.
• Recreate the feeling of matches by doing fitness work to build fatigue and raise the heart rate before doing a drill.

Make sure everyone on the team knows the goal of the fielding session. If it's to be realistic rather than to have volume then people will understand if they are taking less balls in a session, but if they think they need volume and they get only a few catches or throws they will get frustrated. Communication is crucial.

Hone your technique

Fielding technique is down as "basics" so you rarely find senior players working on technique. Although often you will see the same guys working impossibly hard on batting technique!

In fact, there are always technical elements to fielding practice, even when you know how to do a long barrier,

• Learn the three catching methods, and be sure to put work in on the two you like least.
• Get your throwing technique better with some simple tweaks from baseball.
• Even the pick up can be improves by learning and practicing the most efficient ways to get the ball up and away in the ring.

And even when you nail the stop, catch, throw you can start doing diving catches, flicks at the boundary and even left handed throwing. There is always another level with technique!

Bring all these four elements together for a couple of weeks and you will start to notice the fielding levels improve, even if you are already a decent fielding side. Let take "good" to "best".