What spin bowler hasn't heard these clichés in his cricketing career?

"Toss it up" the young spin bowler is so often told. "You've got to flight the ball, give it some air, and get it above the batsman's eye line".

Burners reveals his mantra for batting and slow left arm bowling success this week. Meanwhile David bemoans bad teas and rants about fast bowlers with a lazy attitude.

The blacksmith is the clichéd image of the burly guy in the village team who goes out to smash everything from beginning to end.

Mostly he fails and it’s a mess. He swipes across a straight ball and is sent packing.

Sometimes he succeeds, especially if he has a reasonable technique to go with the power. When that happens you have to outsmart and out-skill the batsman.

1. A do-or-die attitude

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 Being a consistent cricketer isn’t always as good as we imagine.

As decent level players we search for better consistency. We have had good performances in the past. We dream the purple patches will come again. Every shot you play beats the in-field and every ball you bowl finds the outside edge to a pair of safe hands.

To celebrate the release of the latest eBook on PitchVision Academy I’m offering it to you, dear PitchVision Academy reader, at an introductory offer of 50% off.

The eBook is based on the real-life experiences of club cricketers who struggle with making preseason training work for them. It offers a series of practical tips and advice that have been proven (by real life coaches and players) to work at club level.

This drill is part of the PitchVision Academy fielding drills series, for more in this series click here.

Purpose: Perform the underarm throw fielding skill under the pressure of a race between two teams.

Waltham St Lawrence in the leafy English county of Berkshire is not a place you expect to find a redefinition of cricket. Somehow, that’s exactly what has happened.

It’s been a few days since we made the changes to PitchVision Academy, and I wanted to take a moment to say a quiet “thank you” to you.

You the reader, you the listener to the podcast, you the member of PitchVision Academy and everyone else like you are the reason we work so passionately on the site. Your positive feedback about the changes has helped us get through the tricky parts and made most of it a lot of fun.

In a specially extended show we bring up a century in true PitchVision style.

The captain is the all powerful dictator of a cricket team. At first glance it’s his tactical nous that makes a group of individuals into a team and wins matches.

Despite this appearance, good teams operate with a collective consciousness that is greater than even the captain. It’s almost like the Borg. Just like the science-fiction hive mind race, when you are all working together, resistance is futile.