Tactics | Cricket coaching, fitness and tips

Become a Serious Cricketer: Free Coaching Tips from Serious Cricket

Cricket is a game, but to do well you need to get serious. So who better to help you on your journey than the coaches at Serious Cricket?

To celebrate the arrival of Serious Cricket on PitchVision Academy You can get a free 10 week email-based coaching course that covers batting, fast bowling, spin bowling and wicketkeeping exclusively from the Serious Cricket coaches. Just enter your email below to get the goods.

4 Twenty20 Batting Tactics from the World T20 That You Can Coach

Never has a format of cricket provided more opportunity for tactical debate than Twenty20.

I love tactical thinking and these are a few batting tactics that play a part in this T20 World Cup.

The Harbajan Method: How to Bowl Off Spin in Twenty20

Harbhajan Singh returned to International stardom with 4-12 against England. He was supposed to be a fill-in bowler but he bamboozled English batters.

How did he do it?

He took two cricket clichés and turned them on their heads, using the mantras of accuracy and variety in 24 balls.

Harbhajan spent his time away from the India squad rebuilding his confidence in county cicket, and it showed. He was out of the spotlight and returned to his successful method.

3 Twenty20 Tactics You Should be Coaching

With the World Twenty20 in full swing, I look at some new tactics that will be used in the tournament, and how you can copy them in your games.

1. Spinners in the powerplay

The difference in short format cricket now is the specific use of spin.

The IPL is the perfect example of spin being used as an economical and wicket-taking tactic.

Why a Short Leg is Like A Delicious Dessert

Menno Gazendam is author of Spin Bowling Project. Get your free 8 week spin bowling course here. 

Here's What You Didn't Know About Why the Wind Matters to Spinner

Menno Gazendam is author of the popular Spin Bowling Project.

 The first thing you should do when you arrive at the field is check the wind.

Not the pitch, but the wind.

How to Make Your Changing Room Your Fortress

 

When your cricket team is batting, the role of the changing room and balcony is to ensure that the next batter goes into the wicket feeling focused, relaxed and positive.

This is irrespective of the challenge that he is walking into.

It is our job as coaches to protect that environment; to educate the players in appropriate winning language and behaviours because they facilitate excellent performances from your players in the toughest of circumstances.

Here are a few tips:

The Junior Representative Cricketer Guide to PitchVision Academy

This guide for young rep level cricketers aged 11-18 is of a series of introductory guides to PitchVision Academy, for the full list click here.

Tactics you Should be Using: Leg Stump Line

Sometimes even the great Shane Warne had to admit defeat.  Despite being the textbook attacking spinner, there were times even Warnie used negative bowling to get results.

There is certainly no shame in switching plans as a last resort.  If the finest leggie to ever live used it, you can too.

Picture the scene; a limited over game where you bat first and put up an above par score of 223. 

At Last: Proof that Hammering Length Gets Wickets (And How to Bowl Length Better)

It’s a mantra as old as overarm bowling: Put the ball on a good length for long enough and you will get your rewards. But in a world of slower balls, bouncers and inswinging yorkers, it’s an ideal we have forgotten.

Take Stuart Broad as an example. The England bowler spent a long time trying to work out what kind of role he had. Was he the enforcer; there to bowl bouncers and scare batsmen? Was he a line and length man; using swing and seam movement? How did this role change between formats, if at all?