Bowlers! - You have to have a plan!

Thought I might write down a few thoughts regarding some basic guidelines for bowlers who are starting to think about developing bowling plans.

Firstly, bowlers should always remember: YOU START THE PROCESS! this means, while a batsman may arrive at the crease with a plan, and he may even have some idea about what he is going to try to do to you as you are running in, he must ultimately RESPOND to the delivery you produce. This knowledge should encourage you to select each ball carefully but with confidence.
Every bowlers plan should be built around your stock ball - I think the best definition of the stock ball is "The ball you are most confident in bowling with control in a pressure situation". Whatever your stock ball is, you should be trying to bowl it about 80% of the time - in other words in a 4 over (24 ball) spell, you should bowl your stock ball around 20 times! This should allow your skipper to set a supportive field and your variations to create surprise.

That does not mean your stock ball will land in the same spot at the same speed 20 times in 4 overs! We are all human and therefore if you try and bowl your stock ball 20 times in the same spot, you will produce some natural variation. This means if you try and produce identical stock balls they will all come down at a slightly different pace, from a slightly different release point. Remember - the batsman has to respond to every variation - big or small... intended or unintentional. It is often the suble, unintended variation that produces the false shot!

The bowler must always be monitoring the type of shots the batsman is playing. When deciding what variation he will use, the bowler should select a delivery that will most likely inconvenience the batsman given how he has been batting up to that point. Once selected, the bowler should think about the technique required to deliver that particular ball. Then he should IMAGINE the best possible result for the deliver....relax and then run in and bowl.

Stay relaxed and remember that even if you get it wrong you may get a good result and you get to try again!

If you know a batsman and have planned a strategy to implement against him, be patient enough to give the plan a chance to work! Often a players perceived strength is his actual weakness - you may have to be willing to give him a few runs bowling a particular line and length to eventually get the edge that turns the game!

Make sure your skipper knows what you are trying to do so he can support you with an appropriate field. It is often the case that - whatever the plan - if EVERYONE is working towards its success, it will succeed! Further to this, always try and work in with the guy bowling at the other end. If pressure is being exerted at both ends and the plan is co-ordinated, success is also more likely.

AND WHATEVER THE PLAN, IT WILL ONLY WORK IF THE BOWLER HAS THE CONTROL TO PUT THE BALL IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME! SO WORK AT YOUR CONTROL AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY!

Control comes from making the same shape every time. You can only do this if you are strong and confident. This comes from PRACTICE!!!

"The Map" Part 4 - Staying Focussed on Playing The Game

There is a large mental side to cricket and it is often our thinking that gets us out or stops us bowling well.

There are a lot of distractions going on through the course of a game: In the middle, waiting to bat, waiting to field, taking lunch, tea or a drinks break. What is required is a set of routines or processes you can employ, almost without thinking, that will allow you more time and ‘brain space’ to focus on playing the game as well as possible.

These routines will vary from person to person but there are some fundamentals:

• Must be easily performed and repeated. You want to save your mental and physical energy for the game, so employing a complex or lengthy routine will be counter-productive. Where possible try and build on something you already do naturally.
• Must be completely within your control. Make it what you do, not what you and a mate do to get ready to play. He may be sick one weekend and then what? If you need some equipment then make sure you have that equipment in your kit, not something you borrow on game day. If you want to do some skipping every so often while you are waiting to bat, get your own skipping rope!
• Make it specific to your own personality, physical makeup and mental strengths and weaknesses. Some people respond better to images than words, some respond better to sounds. Experiment and discover if listening to a CD has a more lasting effect on your ability to concentrate than reading a note or visualizing an image. Is skipping a better mini activity for you to perform while waiting to bat than using a dot mat?
• Must not be disruptive or a source of distraction to your team mates. Remember you are playing a team game and the team will have its own warm up routines etc. Remember that these routines are designed to get the team ready to play, so they should be performed with 100% effort every time. Your own routines will be added to these so make sure you have the time to perform your routines as well as the teams. If you are doing something that may be distracting, take yourself away from the group when appropriate and work on your own.

Let's look at some examples.

Game day routines for a junior club cricketer
This guy will probably be playing a reasonably short game with quite a bit of coach input. Typically he might arrive at the ground, put his gear down in the change room or wherever the team is basing itself and then go out to the centre and have a look at the pitch as well as the outfield and the length of the boundaries.
Having done this he will take part in the team warm up, during which everyone does a few throwdowns, some target bowling and some fielding. Our fellow might concentrate on:

• His set up and initial movement during throwdowns.
• Working his front arm when target bowling.
• Bending at the knees and at the waist when fielding.

Once the toss is decided, if he is on the batting side he must keep track of wickets and overs and make sure he is ready to bat when called upon.
He may get his gear ready when he is 3 wickets away from batting, put his pads, box and thigh guard on when he is 2 wickets away and keep his helmet and gloves with him when he is next in.
Once he is in, his thoughts and actions between deliveries should form a simple routine:
Relax; self talk: “Watch the Ball like a Hawk – Move to the Ball – Control the Bat” Check the field for gaps.
Once he has finished batting, the player should take some time to sit quietly and relax, have some food and drink if he is going to have to field later in the day and then rejoin his team mates.
If he is a bowler, perhaps some extra energy food and water would be taken on board. At the change of innings he must do a stretch and bowl a few deliveries, focusing on rhythm, line and length. When called on to bowl, he should mentally go through his list of 'Must Dos', for example: ‘Run through the crease, keep my head still, big wrist flick’.
He should have a routine for between deliveries to help him ‘fine tune’ his action and implement strategies to each batsman. Even a junior cricketer’s game day is full of smaller routines!

Game day routines for a senior club cricketer
The senior player will probably be playing in a longer form of the game so he should also develop some ‘waiting’ routines for when he is not directly involved in the match.
If he is waiting for a lengthy period of time with the pads on, he may get a skipping rope out of his bag and do a couple of minutes skipping. Or maybe he will produce a golf ball and do some underarm rebound catching in the change room (as long is it’s not distracting other players!).
If he is waiting to bowl, he may do a mini stretching routine every 4 or 5 overs so he is ready when called upon.
At the end of a days play, the senior player should do a stretch and a warm down routine before he leaves the ground. This will reduce his risk of muscle soreness, particularly helpful if he is playing a couple of days in a row.

Remember – the reason you introduce a routine is so that you can focus more acutely on the really difficult stuff: batting and bowling! Your mind must be uncluttered and your body ready to perform. Routines provide the necessary organisation.

 

"The Map" Part 1 - A Checklist for Playing Successful Cricket

Listening to ex-International bowler Damien Fleming recently, I was interested to hear him refer to some players as 'Having a good map' with respect to how they prepared for each game. I have always said “You have to have a plan!” and it seemed to me that Fleming was making the same sort of statement.

What is 'The Map'?

Everyone has a set of processes they follow prior to playing a game.

• Many players go through these processes in a very erratic manner. These players often find it difficult to produce consistently solid performances on game days.
• The good players identify the processes they go through and attempt to follow them in a deliberate way each time they prepare for a game.
• The very good players identify what works for them within these processes and apply themselves to working through these processes throughout the week leading up to and including game day.

These players are following their own 'map' in an effort to reach their destination: Success in the middle!
I would suggest all cricketers draw up their own map to cricketing success. The higher the level of cricket you play or aspire to play, the more detailed your map should be.
Over the course of the next few weeks I will deal specifically with various specific elements that make up a Players Map. I hope you will work through this process with me and develop your own map as you go. Please remember these maps once developed will be living documents that you constantly modify as your game develops.

The Basics

 

Regardless of age or standard, every cricketer can employ a map of some sort, each containing the same basic elements. These are:

• Practice Routines
• Non Practice Training Routines
• Organization of Diet
• Game Eve Routines
• Game Day Routines
• Recovery Routines
• Game Evaluation and Planning Routine

The very young cricketer will have the majority of these elements determined for them by parents and/or coaches. For those parents and coaches reading this: I would urge you to make your young players aware of the fact that a map exists and encourage them to identify a routine. This is so you can start them along the way to developing their own map. It must make things easier for everyone in the long run!

Practice Routines

All players, regardless of age, should learn a comprehensive warm-up routine. This should include dynamic as well as static stretches. As with all these elements, by turning these activities into a routine they can be learned and remembered more easily. They can also be completed rapidly, making your efforts more efficient and less time-consuming.

After the warm up, some mental rehearsal should take place before any cricket-specific physical activities. For younger players, this might take the form of a reminder from the coach about what specific batting, bowling and fielding skills they should be working at during the session. For older players, each individual should remind themselves what technical aspects of their game they want to focus on that day.

Following this mental rehearsal, players should move into physical skill work. For young players this should wherever possible involve some individual batting, bowling and fielding skills as well as some group activities that put the skills under scrutiny in a game situation.

As players mature and individual skill sets develop, each player will need to undertake diverse activities aimed at addressing weaknesses as well as further developing strengths. Net batting and bowling are only two of a number of activities that might be undertaken at a practice session.
Remember when you are part of a team, you must factor in other players practice needs. As your awareness of the needs of your team mates increases (this should happen with age), you can plan activities that satisfy the needs of a number of players. So you will need to develop a 'pre-training' routine to make sure you get to work at your game as well as helping your team mates and developing team spirit.

One activity common to most team practice sessions is net training. Young players should be reminded what they are trying to do when batting in the nets on a particular day. Should they focus on defence when batting or maybe hitting the loose ball? Should they be trying to bowl some variations or work at their stock ball?

Older players should develop a routine to employ when called upon to pad up for a batting net that will get them to the net with clear objectives and an uncluttered mind. This will vary from player to player.

Similarly, each bowler must develop an individualized routine that focuses their efforts on specific objectives when bowling in the nets.

More experienced players should develop 'mini-routines' that they work through between deliveries. These sets of thoughts and actions will be similar but not identical to the mini-routines players employ between deliveries on game day. (Game day routines must obviously have a strategic element while net practice routines may have a more technical focus.)

Once all the physical activities have been completed, a warm down routine should be performed. Again, this should be easily learned so that the player can perform their stretches while reflecting on how many of their training objectives they achieved during the current session and what objectives they will try and achieve next session. For younger players, the coach can provide this input by summarizing 'What we did today?' and 'What we are going to try and do next practice session?'. This provides some continuity from one practice session to the next.

So if like Damien Fleming and me, you think “You gotta have a plan!”, get a note book and start plotting your own course towards consistent cricketing success.
After all, how can you possible reach the desired destination without a map?

Final Ashes Test 2009 - What can we learn from it?

I wrote this article a few days after the conclusion of the 2009 Ashes Series - Now we are starting a new season, it might be useful to revisit this article. See what you think!...

In the wake of the 2009 Ashes series, I thought I would have a look at the way the Australians played during the big run chase in their second innings of the final Test when the series was on the line. They did a lot of things right and a few things spectacularly wrong and I am sure young cricketers can learn a lot about the way to go about a run chase by analysing this performance.

Firstly, the openers approached their task with great determination and batted out the first session.

Their primary job was to get through to stumps on Day 3 with all 10 wickets intact. They did this by:

• Staying positive. They left the ball, defended the ball or attacked the ball with total commitment to that shot. They realized the field was up so putting away loose deliveries – especially short bowling – was possible. So when they swung, they swung hard and by stumps 80 runs had been erased from the total required, without the loss of a wicket.
• Learning from other batsmen. There is no doubt that the wicket was difficult but Strauss and Trott in particular handled the conditions and made runs. Good batsmen watch each other and try to learn what works on a particular deck. Strauss and Trott played with soft hands, watched the ball obsessively and left as many balls as possible. On the evening of Day 3, the Australian openers took a leaf out of Strauss’ book and successfully negotiated that final session.
• Running well between wickets. In order to wear down a bowling attack, batsmen must continually rotate the strike. This is particularly effective when one batsman is left handed and the other a righty. This causes the bowler to be constantly changing his line and fielders to be changing their positions and angles in the field. It also gives each batsman time off strike to relax so they can refocus when called upon to face up again.

In many ways, what Katich and Watson did on the evening of Day 3 was a blueprint for all opening batsmen looking to set the base for a big score the following day.
Unfortunately, on the morning of Day 4 both batsmen showed precisely how NOT to set about a big run chase. They were obviously trying to set the base for a big score, and they had proved they were up to it the previous evening.

What went wrong?

It is difficult to know what specific thoughts were going through their minds, but a few of the thoughts that may have been circulating that may have contributed to their downfall may have been:

• Getting ahead of themselves. In any situation the batsman can only play the next ball – that ball is the only ball that can get them out so they must focus all their attention on playing that ball as well as possible. If you think about the task of batting for a whole day, rather than just dealing with the next ball, you run the risk of losing focus and letting the next ball bring you undone. Both Aussie openers were out in the first couple of overs – out LBW to straight deliveries.
• Forgetting the one basic rule: Batting never gets easy. Having batted so well the previous evening, they may have tried to “just continue on from last night” rather than starting again - having a good look at each new bowler, leaving the wider deliveries and reacquainting themselves with the characteristics of the pitch. After any break in play, batsmen must take a little time – depending on the situation of the game – to settle back in. Trying to continue on as if there has been no break can often times be disastrous.

So having done a wonderful job at the end of Day 3, they put pressure back onto the middle order at the beginning of Day 4, the one thing an opening pair should never do! Ponting and Hussey then showed us all how to approach a large run chase.

They played each ball with total concentration. They did not look concerned with the size of the task they faced – they broke it down into balls, overs and spells but always stayed focused on the next ball. They realized that – even if the wicket was difficult – the longer they batted the easier it would become. That was their motivation.

Then the run outs.

We will never know what might have been if the run outs had not occurred but they may have changed the course of the innings. What we can do is look at the situation and learn some lessons from it.

• Take responsibility. Once a batsman is set at the crease, he has a larger responsibility not to give his wicket away. Risk must always be balanced against return if successful and consequence if not. In a big run chase, the set batsman must not take excessive risks such as pre-meditating shots or initiating very short singles.
• Run the first run hard. Regardless of the situation, each batsman must always run the first run as hard as possible. No ball watching – just run flat out when your partner calls you through.
• Stay aware. Make sure you know where the ball is before heading down the wicket, especially when you are still getting a handle on where the fielders are.

Finally, in any game, no matter how well you think your side is batting, add two wickets to the total and then re-examine how you are travelling. The Australians had a huge task still ahead of them but I am sure in the back of the Englishmen’s minds the pendulum must have been starting to swing and doubts must have been germinating. The loss of Ponting (which was very avoidable) followed just 4 balls later by Clarke (which was just plain bad luck) really amplified the magnitude of the task facing the Aussies. And the Test was gone!

But even then, a final lesson can be learnt from the way the Australians batted on from this set back and the loss of North soon after. They did not give up.

Self-Belief

Hussey continued to bat with great skill and determination and when Haddin joined him they both gave the impression that – if they could bat through to stumps – anything could happen. Good players and good teams have self-belief. This self-belief impacts on how they play and how their opponents are forced to play. They are always in the contest and they force their opponents to “Go hard or go home”!

Once Haddin departed, another case of losing concentration and playing a loose shot, Hussey continued to bat as if it was the first over of the day. He was rewarded with his first test ton in 20 tests. The English bowlers kept at him and eventually got their man and The Urn.

Even though the Test was lost by the Australians, we can learn a lot about how to play the game by examining what they did right and what they did so terribly wrong. Young players should always actively watch the way more senior players play. There are always lessons to be learnt.