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

Purpose: To practice slip catching concentration under a pressure situation. And to have a fun game.

Description: The coach hits the ball out randomly to players in the line for close catches. Any fielder who drops the catch moves to the bottom of the ‘ladder’ (as shown on the left), everyone else moves up a place.

This article is part of a series designed to show you how to adapt cricket drills for your needs. To see the full list of articles in this series click here.

Every team has a net player. Perhaps it’s even you.

Purpose: A drill that incorporates cricket skills into speed/endurance training. Can also be used as a pre-game warm up drill.

Description: Players get into equal team numbers. The first player in the queue at end A runs with the ball, places it down on the blue marker and runs to the back of end B.

This article is part 4 of the “How to use fitness training to make better young cricketers” series.

Some time in a cricketer’s early teens their focus shifts.

No, I’m not talking about the strange attraction to the opposite sex. I mean that the type of fitness training they can bear moves from movement skills to more traditional strength and endurance.

“Mr Strong is the strongest person in the whole wide world.” - Roger Hargreaves

I’m not sure if children’s character Mr Strong ever played cricket, but if he did I’m betting he would be rather good at it.

Anyone who can throw a cannonball as far as you or I could throw a tennis ball has to be a useful bowler and fielder.

This article is part of a series designed to show you how to adapt cricket drills for your needs. To see the full list of articles in this series click here.

Drills that are designed to groove skills already learned rather than teach from scratch are the focus of this article.

Here we are going to assume that a player can perform the skill and have a feel for it, they just want to get better at it.

Knowing when to leave a fielder up or push him back is quite the art.

Do it too early and you give away easy runs or miss a chance to take a wicket. Do it too late and it costs you big.

Tactically aware bowlers seem to have this 6^th sense, Jedi mind trick to know when to do it. But it’s more a conundrum to others.

Working in the grey area

As you know, South African supercoach Ryan Maron is a friend of PitchVision Academy.

And in 2011 he is giving the chance to PitchVision Academy readers to change their cricketing fortunes with 2 months in Cape Town.

Have you ever wondered how good you could be with the right coaching in top-class facilities?

The Cape Town International Cricket Academy is an intense cricket training experience in the hands of top international coaches. These coaches are:

Purpose: To develop better reactions and close catching technique. This is a simple but effective drill for any age or skill level to groove close catching skills.

Description: Fielders get into pairs facing the wall. The fielder furthest from the wall underarm throws the ball so it bounces off the wall for his or her partner to catch it.

This article is part 3 of the “How to use fitness training to make better young cricketers” series. Click here to go to part 1.Click here to go to part 2.