Good batsmen have good technique (whatever that means). But how much do you need to understand technique to be a good batsman?

It's certainly not the same thing. There are plenty of players who do well without worrying about playing right forward, without a straight back lift, without even hitting straight. They play, they score runs, they get on with the rest of their day.

In a world of many different and successful ways of playing cricket, how can we know what is good technique?

Sam Lavery, Head of Portsmouth Grammar School Cricket Academy, talks about bowling fast.

Over the past couple of months the fast bowling squad at The Portsmouth Grammar School have been considering how they can improve their speed.

When you bat with a plan, you never have to worry about technique again.

In Twenty20, you have to get a move on. Traditional practice won’t cut it. So use this routine instead.

The best batters in the world have excellent back foot games when playing on spinning tracks.

AB de Villiers, Yonus Khan, Rahul Dravid and Joe Root all get as far away from ball bounce when the bowler misses his length on the short side.

Analyst Waqas Zafar returns to assess a bowler based on bowling lengths.

Using PitchVision, a club bowler bowled 360 balls in the nets. 

Unless you plan to only face bad spinners, there will come a time when you need to get fancy with your spin game.

This second part of the guide to playing spin gives you more options to use to both rotate the strike and score more boundaries against spinners.

Do you struggle with an effective way to bat against spin?

There’s hope because - despite it’s difficulty - there have never been more options. Once you find an approach that works for you, your fear of spin vanishes forever.

One of the golden rules of cricket advice is to only comment on what you see. Never comment on what you imagine to be happening.

It’s a simple rule, but easy to forget.