Sometimes your bowling spell doesn't go to plan and the batsman is the one on the attack.

Now it's time to adapt our plan to take into account how and where the batsman is hitting the ball.

One option is to move a fielder or two around to cut off his favourite shot, and try and force him to play a shot he isn't so comfortable with. This will often lead to his dismissal.

Good spinners are like chess grandmasters. You probe your opponent for weaknesses and plan ahead while staying focused on the next move.

Today’s article is a guest post from Darren Talbot; Professional coach, Managing Director of Darren Talbot Cricket Coaching and founder committee member of the Surrey ECB Coaches Association.

Twenty20 has undoubtedly transformed cricket over the past few years. Its effects can be seen in club cricket too.

I keep an empty tin can in my cricket bag. I hate it but I keep it in there all the same.

Having that can makes me thrilled and terrified to be a death bowler; to find out why I need to tell you a story.

Two seasons ago I was my team’s reluctant death bowler. Frankly, I was poor. Despite leaking runs we didn’t have a good bowler to take my place. My team were stuck with me. I would stand at the top of my mark in the last few over dreading how my figures would look.

Cricket hurts.

I’m not talking about a fast bowler putting one into your ribs, or even turning an ankle over. That can happen at any age.

I’m talking about the chronic build up of aches and pains of a career. The ones where you get up in the morning and think:

“Man, I hurt so bad, surely no game is worth this much pain”.

If you are cricket tragic you put up with it.

A new phrase is creeping in to cricket: Laptop coaching. And it’s not seen as a good thing.

It’s all pervasive in professional cricket: Analysts record every ball of matches and coaches pour over the stats looking for trends. Innings and bowling spells are recorded and catalogued for later analysis. Critics say the approach is responsible for creating robotic cricketers with no life skills beyond the ability to ‘hit the right areas’.

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

Purpose: Practice the underarm pickup and throw in a pressure situation.

Description:

Do you want to become the bowling spearhead of your team?

I can understand the feeling. I had the same one but things weren’t working out for me. Then something happened which made me into the strike bowler and the pace spearhead of my team. Read on, learn from my experiences and help yourself to become a strike bowler too.

A couple of years ago I was a fast bowler with decent (not furious) pace. I used to open the bowling and take wickets swinging the new ball.