You may recall a post-tour review undertaken by our U14 Keeper Batter, Jamie. Well, Jamie is back and he is the focus of a drill that I do to test a players psychological attributes as well as their technique.

It's called the "Up and Up" drill.

One of the most simple batting drills you can do on a bowling machine with good players. I stress the need for the player to be of a good standard as otherwise, the drill could potential become overawing for the person stuck down at the batters end.

I make my decision around the appropriateness of this drill over a long, long time.

I have worked with Jamie for three years now and last week was his first time with the drill. And he actually didn't know he was doing it until very close to the end of the session.

The up and up batting drill

Bowling machine starts on the players normal practice pace. For Jamie, this was 68mph at the outset.

The technical emphasis for this session was the repeatability of both his front foot decision making and shot execution.

The balls have a bit of natural variation in them, as you can see from the video. This shifts length between a half volley and a good length.

I shift the swing between one outswing and four outswing to adjust line and shape on the incoming ball. The combination of the outswing range and the length variation means that Jamie has to be mentally sharp for each delivery.

I have also done this drill on the back foot. With international players I shift between front foot and back foot by subtle manipulation of the machine head.

I am looking for the player to cope comfortably with subtle length and direction changes at their starting speed.

I then increase the speed by two mile per hour.

This 2mph incremental increase continues until I see signs of technical or mental breakdown.

Once this occurs for a few consecutive deliveries, I stop the round and start the reflection process using the video footage.

The aim is for the player honestly reflect on their experience.

But before we did that, I asked Jamie to put a ball into the machine and then look at the speed of the delivery. It was the same pace as the last ball he had faced. 90mph!

His mouth opened. He couldn't believe that he had faced such pace and had come through it with flying colours. Assistant Coach Dad said that he saw Jamie grow 6 inches when he saw the readings the dial.

Important to remember here that Jamie was ready as a person and a batter to attempt this drill and as a result, he could meet the challenge and elicit extra confidence as a result.

Hot debrief: 90mph hot

A "hot debrief" is a concept taken from the military world.

Hot debriefs occur immediately after a tough round so that the players can capture the key observations, thoughts and emotions that they experienced only seconds beforehand.

• Jamie informed me that he realised the pace was increasing when it reached 78mph on the Dial at my end.
• Jamie's decision making started to be negatively impacted at 80mph. He spotted this on the video and felt that he had begun to rush his pre-delivery routine before arriving into his initial stance. He also reported that his thoughts were beginning to feel rushed at this point.
• Jamie also noted that he seemed to recover his processes after faltering at 80mph. This recovery encouraged me to continue with the drill and increase the pace of the ball up to 82mph. A great process for Jamie to recognise and an awesome situation to experience.
• Technically, Jamie noted that the timing of his trigger movement into his ready position became inconsistent around 84mph. He would like to see himself having a bigger amount of time on his front foot before then moving into his final movement into the ball.
• Jamie noted that when the timing of his trigger was spot on that he moved simply to the interception point, with great balance and made excellent contact with the ball. He said that when he did this, the ball looked slow. Basically, he looked like he had all the time in the world, even at extreme pace.
• He loved his AB de Villiers "Late Block". Something that all the batters at Millfield practice and aim to be able to do as well as the great South African himself.
• He was pleased that he only missed out on two balls off of his legs throughout the session.
• He was also pleased at how well he kept his bat face on the line of the ball during contact and into the follow through phase of the bat swing.

I asked Jamie what changes would he make to his technical and mental processes if we were able to repeat the session again?

Jamie response is below.

"I would look to slow my mind down through breathing techniques and ensure that my pre-delivery routine was also slower. I would only get into my stance when my mind is clear and ready. Technically, I would work on the consistency of the timing of my trigger movements ahead of ball release. This would enable me to move into a balance position at ball contact. I would then have more control and probably, more scoring areas and options".

If you have a very good player in your team then the up and up drill could give them an extra confidence boost as well as challenging their technique and mental game plan under the pressure of ball speed.

It's not one for the faint-hearted, it's one for a very good player.

Jamie certainly is that!