Here's a problem: Batting is unfair, batting practice is too fair.

What do I mean?

The biggest frustration of batting is getting out. One mistake and it's over, even if it's the first ball you have faced of the season. Yet when we go to a net practice we all do 10-20 minutes no matter what happens and walk away satisfied that we got a good hit.

The problem, then, is when you practice you feel no pressure and when you bat in a game you feel all the pressure. There is a huge disconnect and your practice time is wasted. It leads to losing focus, playing poor shots and fewer runs.

The solution is simple: make practice unfair.

Before you can smash that half volley through the covers for a searing boundary, you need to pick up the half volley. That's shot selection in action and - as batsmen and coaches - we should never take it for granted.

But how do you train for shot selection?

Learning the technique of a shot is much easier. You are moving. You can get feedback. You can drill repeatedly until you get it right. But it's hard to come up with "drills" for a process that only goes on in your head: While you are identifying the line and length of the ball, and then choosing a shot, you are not doing anything with your body.

Fortunately, it's simple to integrate shot selection specific drills into your normal training. Here's some things you can do.

Mark Garaway, Sam Lavery and David Hinchliffe talk about complimentary batting and bowling, bowling faster and facing more balls in practice.

You want to bowl fast, so you change your action to correct flaws and you get more pace. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Frustration: An underrated way to get wickets, and enormously effective at any level. In recent years, this has been called “squeezing” or “bowling dry”.

How do you bowl dry this way?

International players and coached these days are always going on about how they “performed as a unit” – fielded, batted, bowled.

Lurking in the depths of this moribund press talk is a grain of truth we can use at any level.

David Hinchliffe, Mark Garaway and Sam Lavery talk cricket. There is a discussion on the coach-captain split of duty, front foot stride and whether you need to join an academy to be a cricketer.

Fielding, especially for young players, is the ugly sister of playing cricket.

Fielding in the deep can feel like a lonely place.

Have you ever thought about the many different ways that a person can move and position themselves ahead of taking a safe catch?

I was taught one way of high catching when I was a young player: The "Aussie" style catch with the hands reversed and the ball taken as high as possible with my hands in front of my face.