Do you recognise this practice situation?

Nets, minimal equipment, 90 minutes and an abundance of players eager to hone their skills. This is a common scenario for club coaches both during the season and over the winter period.

With Europe and the USA having just battled it out on the golf greens of Hazeltine, perhaps there’s an opportunity to incorporate some Ryder Cup themes into your session. Here at Cardiff Met University for example our Ryder Cup Session looks like this:

• EUROPE = Batting Team (eight batters, two per lane)
• USA = Bowling Team (eight bowlers, two per lane)
• One hole = five minutes (each batting pair bat for four holes so 20 minutes in total)

At the end of each five minute rotation, both teams come together to briefly discuss who has won the hole to gain a +1pt, or whether they cannot be separated and the hole goes down as ½.

You can set contextual parameters on each net; opening the batting in lane one for example, or last 10 overs in lane four. Your your players can take responsibility for setting their fields in addition to determining the criteria for how a hole is won.

It might be that a dismissal wins the round outright, much like a hole in one does; or it might be the assertiveness the batting pair displayed in their running and calling; or the extent to which wides and no balls affect the hole.

The criteria can be as precise as you like; as long as it is purposeful and drives good standards. That is all you can ask for as a coach.

This technique allows you to take a step back and observe how your players respond when the competition is on. Some may rise to the challenge, becoming more vocal and take onus on their field settings; others might become introverted and just bowl or bat to the scenario you’ve given them. They may not show initiative in finding a solution that best suits them.

So let’s look at an example.

After 20 minutes, Europe have batted and USA have bowled. The score might be 2 ½ v 1 ½.

Have a discussion with your team captains; are they happy with the set criteria? Is there anything that would help improve the standards and practice heading into the second half? Do batting pairs need to show more intensity during their running?

Swap the teams over and see how the they respond, after which you’ve hopefully had a productive, focused and high quality net session which beats turning up, whacking some balls and getting cleaned up five times, or running in at low intensity and bowling an assortment of deliveries randomly picked out the hat.

If you still have time left in your session why not make some fielding drills competitive to continue the battle? Catching, stump hitting you name it! Either way, you should have one team walking away happy at having had some “Ryder Cup” success!

Matt Thompson is Director of Cricket at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Captain of Devon County Cricket Club. You can find out more at The Coaches Corner.