PitchVision Academy

5 Simple Steps to Become the Master of the Legside Stumping

David.Hinchliffe — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:19:46 +0100

The legside stumping is one of cricket's finest sights. I know as a former wicketkeeper I’m biased, but it’s a skill that turns games. It’s achievable by all keepers if these sound rules are followed:

1. You can't catch what you can’t see

Many keepers see the ball going down the legside and head off blindly to take the ball without gathering enough information. The result is that they get stuck behind the line of the batter and then we see a pair of gloves appear from behind the batsman grabbing blindly at thin air.

Stay on the offside of the batter for as long as possible in order to gather the information that tells you of where the ball will be at ball take. Then you aren't guessing when you move down the legside. You move across smoothly and with confidence, the ball nestles in the gloves.

2. Panther-like lateral movement

Move across to the legside of the batter using a low movement pattern (like a hunting panther) keeping your head and hands low enabling you to come up with the bounce of the ball. As we stated last week, 80% of balls that are missed go under the line of the hands and this low movement will help to ensure that you don't add to the statistic.

3. Should you use a one step or two step movement to move across?

Shorter keepers tend to use two steps to move across, this provides them with an anchor position where their inside foot is close to the Leg Stump and provides a base for movement back into the stumps to take the bails. Tall keepers have the option of using the one step movement patterns and use their leg length to slide their foot across early whilst staying off side of the batter with their head.

Rob Turner, the Ex-Somerset Keeper used this technique brilliantly when standing up to Mushtaq Ahmed

4. Create a base at ball take

If the keeper is balanced at ball take then she is able to push back into the stumps and take the bails. Balance is achieved by having a minimum of shoulder width base with your feet at ball take and having your head, hands and feet in line.

Often, when a keeper is losing balance you will note that their feet are too close together and create a narrow base that forces the keeper to topple over away from the stumps. This naturally reduces the chance of taking the bails or makes the movement back into the stumps a stretched one: widen the base to increase the control, stability and the number of stumping opportunities.

5. You have more time than you think

With a strong base and an anchor position, the keeper is in great shape to whip the bails of and complete the leg-side stumping.

I never missed a stumping because I was too slow at getting the bails off. However, I missed plenty because I didn't have the ball in my hands! Many keepers are so keen to take the bails off that they leave the ball behind. Enjoy the take and move smoothly to take the bails; you always have more time than you think.

Follow these 5 leg-side take points and consistency, control and success will quickly follow. Let me know when that leg-side stumping count starts to rise.

How to Play Fast Bowling as Effectively as Mandeep Singh

David.Hinchliffe — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:00:43 +0100

Imagine opening the batting for Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. The opposition is Deccan Chargers and standing at the end of his run is no less that Dale Steyn; one of the world’s most destructive pacemen.

It’s fair to say your heart would be racing. That’s a situation experienced by 20 year old Punjab opener Mandeep Singh. Yet despite the pressure, the pace and fear he is flourishing. Many critics have him on the fast-track to becoming India’s next big thing.

How does he stay calm under pressure and play fast bowling so well? There are some simple training techniques you can use:

Groove your technique

There is no point starting your quest to playing pace by facing the bowling machine at 145kph. You need to have faith in your technique and that means:

Underarm feeds

Bowling machine/throwdown at a slow pace

Here you can work on getting properly aligned and balanced to defend, drive or play a cross bat shot.

Many players skip this part, thinking their technique is good enough that they don’t need to do any simple grooving. But every session that you do that hones your positioning is locking in muscle memory for more advanced drills.

Challenge your reactions

While you work on your basic positioning, you can also challenge your eyes, reactions and technique at pace.

You can do this by having a coach or batting buddy underarm a series of 4-6 balls in quick succession. This forces you to quickly decide to play or leave.

You can step up the pace of this again by facing tennis balls hit with a racquet. For demonstrations of these drills have a look at Gary Palmer’s Build Confidence with Solid Defensive Technique and Tactics online coaching course.

Know what makes you confident

Mandeep Singh’s success is not just down to technique. He feels confident about his ability too. He knows he can play very fast bowling and so plays with excitement rather than fear.

You will have your own methods for building confidence (outside of practice). Learn what your best routine is, and stick with it, get your self-talk right and be sound in your role in the side.

You may not be facing Steyn anytime soon, but when you do come up against a bowler who is fast enough to challenge you, you will be confident that you will succeed because you have put in the work, just like Mandeep Singh.

Lessons from IPL: Do Bad Boys Prosper?

David.Hinchliffe — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:50:13 +0100

From Harbhajan Singh to Dale Steyn, IPL 2012 has been littered with examples of cricketers pushing the Spirit of Cricket to its limits. The offenders will say it’s just passion over-spilling, but do you need a bad boy to succeed at your level?

The example of Harbhajan Singh is a good one to examine. The Mumbai Indian’s skipper argued for several minutes with the umpire, eventually forcing him to review his decision.

In this situation, the review found out that the batsman was out and the decision was reversed. The bad boys were vindicated because the correct decision was eventually made. They didn’t escape censure after the match, but by then the work had been done anyway.

We have all seen similar behaviour at club, school and academy level too. Some personalities are fired up so much by the heat of battle that they can forget what is acceptable.

Playing with passion is an important part of cricketing success. Bowlers especially need to get “fired up”. It’s a well known sport psychology phenomenon called the Inverted U Theory:

Here you can see there is an optimum point of arousal (or how fired up you are) that leads to maximum performance.

But you can also see that if you get too motivated – too passionate – you lose performance. So there is certainly a strong case for making the opposition tut at your naughty acts.

Making the most of bad boys

What this graph doesn’t show is exactly how much arousal each individual needs. Someone with that “bad boy” personality will be pushing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour before they are at their best performance.

Different personalities have no need to go as far.

It’s up to you to identify how fired up you need to get to perform. If you are of the bad boy personality you will find yourself getting into trouble to get to your best game. For me this is better than accepting the alternative of behaving perfectly and playing poorly.

Of course, this doesn’t excuse bad behaviour. Most people don’t need to see off the batsman by pointing to the dug out. We all know where the line is and you can be a world-class player without ever being ill-mannered.

So be mindful of your actions. Get your arousal to the right level and avoid bad behaviour as much as you can.

But if you or one of your team-mates is a bad boy that gets results then perhaps you can cut him some slack. He may just keep the whole side playing with passion.

Cricket Show 161 Competition Winner

David.Hinchliffe — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:59:18 +0100

This week’s winner of the Cricket Show podcast question competition is Varun. He wins a free coaching course from PitchVision Academy.

The winning question was:

"I want to improve my fielding standards but problem is that a league has just started in our city and is going to continue for a month. As a result , we are not able to do any fielding drills (the ground remains occupied for the whole day). We have to settle for just the net practice.Any tips and drills which i can do on my own to take my fielding standards to another level?"

Listen to the panel’s answer to his question here.

To enter your own question for the chance to win your choice of online coaching course send your questions in here.

The Junior Cricketer’s Guide to PitchVision Academy

David.Hinchliffe — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:59:20 +0100

This guide for young cricketers aged 8-18 is of a series of introductory guides to PitchVision Academy, for the full list click here.

Cricket is a game that takes a long time to learn and even longer to master. Coaches, parents and plenty of others are on hand to help with advice for your matches. You wonder if you are the next Tendulkar or just another kid.

You are playing matches at your age group and you passion is growing. You want to learn more, improve faster and become a star player. You want to have fun with your friends and you know how much fun it is to win!

PitchVision Academy wants to give you a leg up on your journey. So while it is up to you to put in the hard work, here is our guide to playing (and winning) junior cricket:

Fitness

Practice

Technique

Fielding

Tactics/Mental Game

Other Tips

Cricket Show 161: Tips on Making the Leap to Professional Cricket from the Experts

David.Hinchliffe — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:10:54 +0100

The show picks the brains of Mark Garaway and Phil Oliver about their experience of helping players make the jump into professional cricket. You might be surprised by the answers you hear.

The mailbag is as full as usual as David Hinchliffe, Garas and Burners answer your questions and give away a prize of online coaching. Plus we have the Soapbox, Yes/No and Tailender features that ends with a sledging for David. Download it now!

How to Get in Touch With the Show

Our contact email can be found here.

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Wicket Keeping Secret: Posture is Everything!

Mark Garaway — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:18:55 +0100

80% of balls that are missed by a keeper go under the hands!

This is a finding from from the study I did in 2008 monitoring 52 high performance keepers from Under 11 County Age Group keepers to MS Dhoni and Mathew Prior in Test Cricket.

So why does this happen, and how do you stop it?

The ball goes under the hands as a result of a couple of things:

Poor posture in stance
Poor posture at ball bounce
Leading the upward movement with the head into the attempted take

The solution is to work at your posture and controlling your start position and transition into ball take.

The "Z" position is a term that was developed by Bruce French; ECB Lead Wicket Keeping coach to describe the posture that provides stability, control, power and appropriate head and hand height to a wicket keeper preparing to move into a position to take a ball.

If you control this position then you give yourself the best chance of meeting the upcoming challenges that the ball or conditions throw at you.

The keeper creates a Z shape: starting at his feet working all the way up the lower leg, changing direction along the Femur with the top of the Z shape starting at the hips and finishing at the top of the head. The back is flat and chin is away from the chest. This posture provides the keeper with:

Stability: A strong base that provides the foundation for both lateral (side to side) and upward (covering the bouncing ball) movement. The hands are near the ground and are in a position to come up with the bounce of the ball.
Power: The legs are in a strong position with the Quadriceps and Gluteals loaded with energy ready to power into a position to take the ball. Ensure that the feet are pointing down the wicket as this then allows the joints (Ankles, Knees, Hips) to work in the way that they are designed as you come up with the bounce of the ball.
Balance: weight is evenly distributed across the balls of both feet. This means that sideways movement (to the offside and legside) can be achieved easily.
Vision: Chin is up, eyes are level and in position to take in as much visual information as possible to inform you of the appropriate movement pattern to take to take the ball cleanly.

This position is a great starting point and means that the last thing to rise is the head and the hands. The hands should remain low (fingers touching the ground) until ball bounce, then the body unwinds with the bounce of the ball and the hands therefore also hands can rise with the bounce of the ball.

As a result, the ball and hands remain on the same height and line and the ball is more likely to nestle into the gloves rather than disappear past you or clatter into the bottom of your fingers creating those nasty bruises and fractures.

The basis of all wicket keeping (standing up and standing back) originates from this starting position. Master this and you’re on the path to wicket keeping excellence.

The brilliant thing about this position is that it’s not just Keepers who can benefit from good posture, all fielders can. I am currently coaching at Millfield School here in the UK. The 1st XI has taken 10 Slip catches already this season compared to zero in 2010. This is purely down to the posture work that the players put in during the off season.

Now I'm no mathematician, but those seem like positive numbers to me!

There is No Such Thing as the X-Factor in Becoming a Cricketer

David.Hinchliffe — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:02:12 +0100

A lot of people say that to be a professional cricketer you need that special indefinable “x-factor”. It’s a magical trait that you either have, or not. If you don’t have it you will never get it.

This is lazy thinking.

Yes, of course you need something special. But there is no way this is an indefinable thing. It’s just something that is difficult to measure.

Runs and wickets are easy. You look at the stats and decide who the best is. But runs and wickets come from the more woolly psychological side. If I was to try and define the x-factor in cricket I would put it down to these things:

Able to handle and overcome setbacks

As we know, the difference between a good player and an average player is mainly down to how well and how much they practice. Those who are highly motivated put in extra hours which pay off in the middle in both increased skill and robust confidence.

But when things go wrong, the good players are able to put it behind them quickly. Whether it’s bowling a bad ball, or having a bad season, the player trusts himself to break through the rut through sheer hard work.

In his online coaching course, JP Duminy talks about this. He has had several setbacks in his career including a season where he almost gave up on cricket before he even got a professional contract. But instead of deciding he wasn’t good enough he tried harder and longer and eventually broke through to International cricket at a very young age.

Average players, on the other hand, take a setback as a sign they can do no better. They reel back the passion and practice and settle. They are Mikka Bozu.

The appearance of control

This is really an extension of the idea of robust confidence: something Mark Garaway first introduced at PitchVision Academy. Here the player always seems to be on top, even when things are not going the right way.

Think of players like Dhoni, Hayden, Flintoff and Warne. They all have so much confidence in their ability that you never feel like you have the upper hand (even when you do). That gives them an aura.

But this is an aura you can copy.

You can’t fake it - not for long anyway - but with a long term commitment you can make it. Just don’t think you need the “x-factor”. Stick to stuff you can control.

Cricket Show 160 Competition Winner

David.Hinchliffe — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:09:28 +0100

This week’s winner of the Cricket Show podcast question competition is Y.Timol. He wins a free coaching course from PitchVision Academy.

The winning question was:

"I recently started coaching a talented 16 year old cricketer. He bowls with excellent consistency regularly hitting his targets (target bowling) and bowls with good pace too. However, in his bound, the student does not use his left leg to propel his body over the bowling crease but instead skips off his right leg - over the bowling crease. Would this be an example of a bowler who bowls of his wrong foot? Would it be advisable to change his action to a more conventional bowling style? Would bowling in this manner cause stress to his body resulting in injury? Please not that apart from this issue, the other basic components of his bowling process is sound."

Listen to the panel’s answer to his question here.

To enter your own question for the chance to win your choice of online coaching course send your questions in here.

How to Become a Cricketer: What Are Your Chances?

David.Hinchliffe — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:14:10 +0100

You’re truly desperate to become a cricketer. You watch your heroes on TV and dream of playing alongside them.

The trouble is that you don’t know where to start. Do you even have a chance or are you wasting your time with an impossible aim?

You know the numbers already; most people who play cricket never go on to even reach professional level. An even smaller number will ever reach international honours. Statistically it doesn’t look great.

Yet there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

You have passion and desire. You are prepared to do whatever it takes to reach the top. You are impervious to setbacks and you have youth on your side. With luck and squeezing out every ounce of talent you might just be able to join the cricketers who play professionally.

Let’s be honest about it though. The odds are slim. Less than 1 in 1500 cricketers make it. You need to be a very good player to even get a chance. There are always more people wanting to play than there are places in professional Academies and on team rosters.

The only way you are going to make it is to show how good you are in runs or wickets at your current level: work your way up through the levels through sheer weight of performance. Cricket may have its politics but no one can argue with heavy run scoring or wicket taking.

More than one chance

Often I get an email from cricketers asking for “just one chance”. The truth is that one chance is not how you become a cricketer

You need to get there through hard, deliberate practice and robust confidence. That combination feeds into on-field performances over a long period. There are no shortcuts, no one who is playing because they proved themselves once. It’s a 10 year marathon.

That’s also why it gets harder to make it as a cricketer every year you pass the age of 21. It takes a long time to master the game, so if you are not a long way down the path by this age, you won’t be able to get to the required standard before you get too old. Don’t rely on becoming the next Dirk Nannes.

People don’t arrive in professional cricket out of nowhere. There is always a story of hard work and overcoming setbacks. If you want to become a cricketer then be realistic. Look at your age, your background, your successes and your ability to overcome failures. Only then can you decide if you truly have a chance.