The CS Cricketer Blog
Winter Wonderers make for a Summer Blitz
The C.S Cricketer
For some, retrieving the kit bag out of the shed and pulling the whites out of your bag (which you forgot to do after your Grand Final win in March) is something they still aren’t ready to do. For others, a head start with their coach or mentor has got them prepared for what we all hope is going to be our best season yet. But with July fast approaching, it’s not long now until indoor net sessions start in Australia, which means the cricket season is fast approaching. This week I am going to talk about the common fails we do in the winter and what we can do to make sure we are ready for ball 1 of the season.
Winter Options
Some are lucky enough to get the chance to chase the sun and play in another part of the world, while the rest us are staring out our windows and watching the rainfall. We still have plenty of options and resources to be ready for the next season though.
Taking up a winter sport is a great way to get a leg up on your team mates and opponents in going into the next season. The natural progression of speed and aerobic fitness used in sports like football are a great starting point to keeping you fit and healthy and ready for the next cricket season.
A more cricket-based approach is taking up Indoor Cricket. In the past Indoor Cricket has been frowned upon by many coaches saying it ruins your outdoor games. Many cases have proven this is fictional and playing Indoor Cricket has many benefits to cricketers of all levels. Indoor Cricket offers everybody the opportunity to use all skills needed in the outdoor game from batting, bowling and fielding. For batters it offers the chance to play against a swinging ball, playing the ball late under our eyes and most importantly watching the ball hard. With batters looking at scoring every ball it helps bowlers develop new change ups and improve current skills.
Planning
Goal setting isn’t just for the elite, in fact this is a good starting point for being prepared for the summer ahead for all cricketers. The most common mistake made with goal settings is a lot of players focus on the end number while forgetting about the process. While the end goal is important, that can’t be achieved without ticking a few boxes along the way as that 1000 run season you are hoping for won’t just happen. Plan out a pathway, start with what you are going to focus on to get the outcome, how you are going to focus on it and when you are going to focusing on it. Build a road map to the end goal. The most important part of the goal is the planning and preparation to achieve the goal.
Use Nets affectively
This is the most common mistake we see from all levels and age groups of cricketers but once again it goes back to planning. A lot of players will turn up have a bit of a bat and bowl and not really achieve much. By having a plan, you hold yourself accountable to what you want to get out of the session. For some it may be going out of their comfort zone and working on a weakness, for other it could be nailing down a game plan to each type of bowler or different batters. Whatever it may be, if you know what you want to get out of each session, you will be a lot closer to being where you want to be, come October.
Communication
Not only should you have your plans in place for the season, but I can guarantee your coach and captain are also planning what they want to get out of the players/team for the year. Having constant communication with your coach or captain is a great tool to find out what role you may have for the season and what you can get out of every session. It doesn’t hurt to communicate what your plans are either. The more they know about your aspirations, the better they can plan as well.
Partner Up
Partnering up with a team mate is a great way to get in shape and ready for the season. Not only will you keep pushing each other to improve, you will also learn a lot about your team mate as well. Having team mates know each other’s game is a great way to get the results when the pressure is on and there is nobody to fall back on except your team mates.
Get a coach or mentor
There are more 1-on-1 coaches now than ever before and coaches are a lot more affordable than most would imagine. With winter amongst us, lots of coaches have more time on their hands than during the summer months. There isn’t a better time to get your season on track than before it starts. To get yourself ready for the upcoming season and link up with one of our specialist coaches head to https://cs-cricket-coaching.jimdosite.com/coaches/.
Please email [email protected] for any topics you may like to know more about for future blogs.
Beware the gap
The C.S Cricketer
The gap between each ball is where the real game is played.
Sitting down and having dinner with some family friends, we discussed the things we learnt at school which we have never learnt compared to the things we get thrown into learning when we grow up which we were never taught. As a cricket ‘nuffy’, coach and player it made me put it into a cricket perspective.
After a long hard think about the general skills we learn and the drills we use, I came to the discovery we do actually use all those skills…… in very short amounts. The amount of time we spend in the nets practicing the perfect Cover Drive or the perfect Pull Shot, Cut shot, flick off the hip, straight drive… The list goes on. We may practice a specific shot for hours throughout a season yet only play a specific shot a handful of times a game apart from a defensive shot or leave. So, what about those skills we don’t learn? Do we focus to much on the technical skills and miss other components of cricket?
Of course we do. So lets take a look at the things we miss!!!
BEWARE THE GAP – MINDFULNESS
Cricket is conceived as being so technical that we focus heavily on technique and we miss the mental aspect of the game. Never have I heard the saying “90% mental, 10% technical” more in any other sport than I have for cricket. But what is mindfulness and how can we relate it to our cricket?
Mindfulness is being able to stay in the present and in a game which is so easy to think about the past or the future with so much down time in a game of cricket. This is relevant in all aspects from waiting to bat, batting, bowling, keeping and fielding. For those last 4 you are only actually in need to focus for 5 seconds at a time. In a 90 over day that is 2,700 seconds which equates to 45 minutes out of a 400 minutes in a day. That’s 355 minutes of downtime. It’s what happens in that 355 minutes that often causes the downfall of wickets, misfields, dropped chances, boundary balls and often the cause of collapses. The amount of times I can think back and remember worrying how do I play that ball if it happens again only to be walking back bat under my arm 30 seconds later.
As much as what will follow can be used for fielding or bowling, it is batting which has the biggest effect. Compared to fielding or bowling, where you have 10 team mates out there and you can switch off and enjoy some banter. Batting is just you and your thoughts alone with only your batting partner going through the same thing 20 metres away. How many times have you seen a young player get dismissed the ball after crunching a boundary or after being beaten all ends up by a ball that spun big or seam past the bat and of course the batter who plays a bigger drive after a string of dot ball pressure.
A lot of this is down to what goes on in between deliveries. The 30 seconds between belting that ball to fence or being beaten all ends up. That 30 seconds of reliving that delivery while the bowler walks back. The bowler turns and that thought hasn’t left your head as he runs in. Yes, you are focusing on the ball but at the same time in the back of your head is the elation or doubt from that previous delivery. Every ball is a new event and as you go into the next event still living in the last one, you make a mistake and you are joining your 8 other team mates in the shed.
This happens over and over to every weekend warrior and professional and it is the very very best players that find a way to escape this trap with the use of routines. A little trigger which reminds you to switch off from the world, recovering all that mental energy back up to go again next ball. Then a little trigger which reminds them to switch back on. There are many great exponents to this over the modern era. From Jonathon Trott who would scrap the pitch, Steve Smith who fiddles with all his equipment, Warner who undoes the Velcro on his gloves. These are only small things, but it is these things that keeps them fresh to be ready for the next ball. But how do we coach it?
Like a cover drive or pull shot it is as simple as practicing it in the nets. Face a ball from a bowler or in throw downs but take your time between balls and do the same thing each ball and concentrate on a routine that you find easy to maintain to break that thought. Yes, it may mean you face 1-3 balls less than you would in your nets but its quality not quantity.
Take a look at any player on the big stage and see how he/she goes about the gap and how they spend their time. Whether it be batting, bowling or fielding - try to sense the poise they have. Is the pressure building, is it neutral, or is it low-key?
Unless the play is boringly slow with the potential to kill the spectacle, it is a fascinating exercise to watch players on centre stage while the ball is dead. What is everybody contemplating? Cricket, to me, offers a glimpse of the way we live our lives, and this gap in play, before the next ball is bowled, holds the most intrigue of all.
That's why I love cricket. There are so many more interesting gaps in play to appreciate. Cricket is won and lost in these 30-second pockets.