Go to nets, do your drills and play cricket. These are the steps to improving your skills. But how much time does it really take to make it as a cricketer?

One answer looked at in the last 10 years is 10,000 hours: A number plucked off the back of a study into top class violists, and popularised by authors like Malcolm Gladwell and Geoff Colvin. The idea has since been expanded to cricket. People have stated that simply training every day for 10 years will take you to of the cricket tree.

Hard work, yes, but you know what you need to do. It's been proven by science.

I got 10,000 problems

Except, in recent times, the headline of "10,000 hours" has demotivating to people who play club and school cricket. Most of us can't dedicate so much time to the game. If you train, on average, four hours a month, mastery will take 208 years!

You might argue that this is good because only the most talented and dedicated will rise to the highest ranks. That said, 10,000 hour idea is not helpful to you if you are just trying to get a few runs for your club 2nd XI.

If you can't dedicate 20 hours a week to training, should you abandon the idea of improving your game?

Do some motivational maths

Of course, we know instinctively that you can get better in much less time - and with much less work - than the 10,000 hour rule allows.

Some people can become masters in half the time, while other need much longer. But even then, we are not talking about becoming world-class. We are talking about being good at your current level. Maybe you will be world-class someday, but today is not that day and you need to take a step forward no matter what your ultimate goal.

So what is that number?

5,000 hours?

2,000?

100?

Possibly.

But let's talk about the 10 hour rule.

You may not have heard it before - because I just made it up - but it's a far easier number to manage. You'll still improve in 10 hours. You'll still notice the difference in 10 hours. Most of all, you can commit to 10 hours much easier than you can to a great big number.

And if you add up enough 10 hour blocks, guess where you end up? Mastery.

So what does 10 hours look like?

• For the average club batsman having a 15 minute net, that's 40 sessions. Although the number drops if you can have longer. Yes, it's still a lot if you only train once a week, but even then you can improve significantly in less than a year.
• For the average club bowler, bowling in nets for an hour a week will get you better in less than three months.

At the end of your 10 hours, assess your improvements. I'm willing to bet you have got better simply by putting in regular, focused practice. You can just start on another 10.

Use the right training

Even through the 10 hour rule is a lot better for self-motivation, there are some parts of the 10,000 hour rule you could take to every practice to get better.

You see, many studies have show that we improve when we practice in a certain way:

1. Set up a practice with a specific goal
2. Get instant feedback on your success or failure
3. Make an adjustment and try again

For example, bowler's working on accuracy can do target practice. Batsmen working on hitting the gaps can do their own version of target practice.

You can also set up drills and technical work with the same idea in mind.

If you are following the 10 hour rule, every session can have these elements to accelerate your learning. SOme people do this naturally, while others need to be a bit more mindful. Yet, it works for everyone.

Don't forget the grit

Finally, one thing we forget about when thinking about practice is motivation. Yet motivation is one of the most important parts of the puzzle.

When you are dreaming of becoming a cricketer you believe you will practice every day. In reality, most people don't practice every week, let alone every day. At my current club, no one has attended every summer training session. If you had been to every one, you would have clocked 20 hours with the ball and 10 hours with the bat. And you would be much better come September.

While life gets in the way sometimes and we can't train. You can't dodge the numbers. So, the more grit you have to get to practice even when its tough, the better you will get. It's a pure numbers game.

Make sure you are monitoring your motivation and telling yourself the right story.

Of course, changing the 10,000 hour rule to the 10 hour rule is a trick that helps, but the reality is that you need to train a lot to become a cricketer. And that's where grit will save you from yourself.

Summary

• The common "rule" for mastery is 10,000 hour of practice.
• It's much easier to get better at cricket in much less time.
• To do so, set realistic targets for training time.
• Train using a feedback loop to improve fast.
• Whatever your goal and plan, find a way to stay motivated to stick to it.