Everyone wants more drills right?

Drills are one of the most popular searches on miCricketCoach. Ask any coach and they will tell you they are always looking for more and better drills to spice up their practices. More drills are good.

The more drills you have, the lower your chances of improving your game. Drills exist not for their own benefit but to make you better at batting, bowling or fielding. They work by isolating the skill you want to improve then gradually increasing the difficulty in some way.

Fitness trainers know this as progressive overload: A method that has worked for athletes since Greek times. It works for cricket specific skills too but only if you let it.

If you constantly jump from one drill to the next you are not giving your muscle memory enough time to adapt. You can't overload.

On the other hand, doing the same thing over and over again gets boring quickly. Is there another way?

The answer is to find the core drills that work and stick with them. Then build around those drills. A good example is fielding drills.

In his coaching course on fielding, Derek Randall introduces us to the drills he has used with success with the players he coaches. He always uses these drills because he knows they work and he can measure how successful his players are doing them.

But for variety there are extra drills that are used from time to time to keep things interesting.

Does this mean you should never vary your core drills?

You can, just don't stray too far. You can add a competitive element to them to make them more intense, make them more based on speed or endurance than skill and many other adjustments. This way you can still overload the skill without getting bored.

Too much variety in drills leads to a lack of specialisation. Stay focused and you will have more success.

Image credit: Budda's Breakfast