I ‘m delighted to announce that Kevin Pietersen’s online coaching courses Keep Calm and Smash It are now available exclusively on PitchVision Academy.

As you know, back in January we announced KP was revealing his methods in his first ever online coaching courses. And since then it’s been a feast of KP action on the site as a preview to the main event.

Now the wait is over: Keep Calm and Smash It courses are now available.

Click here to enrol.

The team announce your chance to win a feast of Kevin Pietersen prizes this week. Click here to enter.

But it’s not all grabbing swag. There is also a host of advice from David, Burners and Mark Garaway. The importance of “bench strength” is discussed in the light of India, Australia and Sri Lanka in a very heavy period of ODIs.

Readers’ questions are answered on choosing a captain and how to perform again after a good performance. Also, ECB rep level coach Paul Williams guests with some advice on coaching talented youngsters from the club game. 

In the first of three articles on sweeping spinners, I look at the hard sweep: The ‘normal’ sweep where the ball is hit out towards the square leg boundary along the ground.

Many commentators are very critical on the shot and its use in any format of the game.

In England, I was bought up being told that you should not hit against the spin.

You can't hit with control and the bowler will end up getting your wicket, they used to tell me.

Every time I hit an off spinner for 4 between mid off and extra cover I was told it was risky.

But I reckon that in all my batting career scored 2000 runs with that one shot.

In our regular series of coaching questions PitchVision Academy put to Kevin Pietersen during the filming of Keep Calm and Smash It, we asked KP to explain his approach to left arm spin. He doesn't see a problem.

The video below explains it all, including demonstrating the way he scores.

Click play to watch it.

If you want to learn shortcuts to learning your own methods of batting success get Keep Calm and Smash It, the online coaching course that gives you instant access to videos, drills and worksheets.

PitchVision Academy’s newest coaching panel member is Iain Brunnschweiler, former professional player and a coach at Hampshire and England’s Development Programme. In this article he gives an insight into a recent high performance camp he ran.

The key to batting early on is more about the shots you don’t play more than the ones you do.

From the opposition’s point of view, bowling with the new ball at new batsman and not making them play is wasting the chance to get wickets.

So as a batsman you must forget what shot to play next, and just consider what shots you aren’t going to play.

Preparation is the key; before you even face your first ball of the innings you must decide to play it safe, at least to start. 

When you bake a cake you don’t wait until it’s in the oven before making it taste good. A good cake is all in the preparation.

Cricket is just the same. When you put in the work mixing the right ingredients, you know you will be proud of the results.

So, if the weeks before the season starts is the prep time of cricket, what are the ingredients?

Imagine you scored 220 of your 50 overs and you now have the opposition 185-8 with 5 overs left.

You’ve bought your openers back on to finish the job, and rudely the last few batsmen are defending like their life depended on it.

You can stick with the strike bowlers and hope the batsmen get bored or the bowlers are fast enough to blast them out.

The game will end in a draw and your hopes of a strong league position fade a little more.

Or you can bring on your more occasional spin bowler.