This article is part 4 of the “How to use fitness training to make better young cricketers” series.

Some time in a cricketer’s early teens their focus shifts.

No, I’m not talking about the strange attraction to the opposite sex. I mean that the type of fitness training they can bear moves from movement skills to more traditional strength and endurance.

“Mr Strong is the strongest person in the whole wide world.” - Roger Hargreaves

I’m not sure if children’s character Mr Strong ever played cricket, but if he did I’m betting he would be rather good at it.

Anyone who can throw a cannonball as far as you or I could throw a tennis ball has to be a useful bowler and fielder.

This article is part of a series designed to show you how to adapt cricket drills for your needs. To see the full list of articles in this series click here.

Drills that are designed to groove skills already learned rather than teach from scratch are the focus of this article.

Here we are going to assume that a player can perform the skill and have a feel for it, they just want to get better at it.

Knowing when to leave a fielder up or push him back is quite the art.

Do it too early and you give away easy runs or miss a chance to take a wicket. Do it too late and it costs you big.

Tactically aware bowlers seem to have this 6^th sense, Jedi mind trick to know when to do it. But it’s more a conundrum to others.

Working in the grey area

As you know, South African supercoach Ryan Maron is a friend of PitchVision Academy.

And in 2011 he is giving the chance to PitchVision Academy readers to change their cricketing fortunes with 2 months in Cape Town.

Have you ever wondered how good you could be with the right coaching in top-class facilities?

The Cape Town International Cricket Academy is an intense cricket training experience in the hands of top international coaches. These coaches are:

Purpose: To develop better reactions and close catching technique. This is a simple but effective drill for any age or skill level to groove close catching skills.

Description: Fielders get into pairs facing the wall. The fielder furthest from the wall underarm throws the ball so it bounces off the wall for his or her partner to catch it.

This article is part 3 of the “How to use fitness training to make better young cricketers” series. Click here to go to part 1.Click here to go to part 2.

PitchVision Academy has been touring the UK giving real players the chance to get coaching and instant feedback using the PitchVision sensor system.

And someone had the bright idea of videoing it all. We forgot the old adage "what goes on tour, stays on tour".

 This article is part of a series designed to show you how to adapt cricket drills for your needs. In this part we look at ways of increasing the speed of learning new skills. To see the full list of articles in this series click here.

You don’t have to be a kid to learn a skill but frankly, mostly it is kids.

If I do say so myself, we are pretty awesome at PitchVision Academy. Where else can you find so many drills for every cricket skill?

But we are only so great because you are so great right back. You are not about getting fed exactly what to do. You want to learn why you’re doing something so you can improve on things yourself without our help.

That’s why we showed you how to design your own drills.