How to have a club cricket indoor fielding session | Cricket coaching, fitness and tips

How to have a club cricket indoor fielding session

Last night I ran a fielding only net session for my club.

As it's winter here the cold and dark restricted us to the local sports hall.

Normally we have a net session but I have long been gunning for more fielding practice and Sam, our club captain, decided he wanted the same and asked me to run a session. The session was an hour for around 14 adults ranging in skill from club first to third team. We had the whole hall to train in. All the equipment we had were 4 sets of spring loaded stumps, some bats and balls.

One point of note: even for adults use the soft windballs indoors. The hard surface and cold hands prevented us from using the hard balls.

Warm up

We started with a simple session as people were arriving in dribs and drabs. I split the hall into three areas like the game piggy-in-the-middle. The object of the game is for the middle team to stop the ball passing through. The end teams must underarm the ball along the ground to get it past.

We then moved on to a few minutes of pairs work. First we did some flat catching then some underarm pickup and return work. To make this more interesting for adult players (who should have the technique down by now) I introduced a scoring system to make it competitive.

Main session

With everyone warm and ready we moved on to some more physically demanding drills.

The first game is called 'Hit the Stumps'. The stumps were placed in the middle of the long edge of the hall, the players stood in the middle of the short edge. I rolled the ball out to each player in turn who ran in and tried to throw down the stumps.

We did this a couple of times from each side, the aim being to hit the stumps more than the last round. We then moved onto a classic competitive game. One team were running with bats as if trying to score a quick single, the other team had to run them out by hitting the stumps. This was great as everyone was involved and there was a lot of technical work done at high speed.

One point of safety was to have the runners and the fielders separate so stray balls did not make contact with heads.

Game

We finished with a game designed mainly for conditioning by also for throwing and catching skills. I set up 2 sets of stumps about 30 yards apart with a 5 yard chalk circle around them. The aim of the game is to hit the opponents stumps after 3 successful throws and catches. Players were not allowed to run with the ball or go in the chalk circles.

This game works a little better outdoors with more space to play in but it was a excellent finish. Pairs cricket is also an option here. The feedback I got was all positive and we will be doing some more sessions like this as part of our weekly club nets. I can only see it improving our fielding come the summer.

What about your team, do you do any fielding in the off season?

image credit: Wallula Junction

 

 

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Comments

Sounds good! We often get ~30 down to nets, so ~12 bowl at two batsmen and the rest practice fielding alongside the nets. Mostly throwdowns, catching and throwing.

For the "quick-single" game, you can add a bit of calling practice by only allowing one batsman look at the feeder - he then has to call for the run. Feeder can make it interesting by faking a throw and then passing to the keeper to run out the batsman unless his partner can send him back.

I like that, adding a bit of tactical thinking in.

Love your post. Always good to hear about Cricket. Smiling Especially in cricket-starved US :)- Martin

Goos to hear it Martin, I hope you enjoy.

you should also play 'slips' as derby c.c have called it, get a tennis racket and smash tennis balls of the wall, put padding down in the required areas, and then jump around like a madman for the sake of catching the balls.

OR:

you can get a bat in summer, and slice the ball behind you whilst having the other 9 players attempt to catch it by being positioned in diffferent places.

hence my team can catch great.

Great tips. What team do you play for?

At club level, fielding is the part of the game that does not get nearly the attention it deserves. On the weekend, our 3rd grade side dropped 14 CATCHES, and no, there was no spelling mistake. They ended up having to field for 102 overs on the first day and had to chase somewhere around 400. Needless to say, they got rolled for 130 the next day.

So the more fielding you can get done at pre-season, the better. This is where innovative captains and club coaches come into the fore.

I totally agree. Hear the message and get out of the nets for a few minutes every session!