It's getting increasingly difficult for us cricketers to develop the all round athletic skills we need to succeed.

Playing lots of cricket is the best way to get better at cricket, but doing that alone will not make players faster, more powerful or less prone to injury. To do that you need a well planned progressive training plan.

What with cricket training, matches and other commitments (work, family, school) there is only so much time in the day, especially during the season.

This is made worse if you play cricket in a country with a long season like India. The off season is so short you barely get chance to recover from the last one, let alone develop. It's also a problem for cricketers who play all year round, perhaps in the UK during the northern summer and South Africa or Australia in the southern summer.

On top of all this, young players are specialising in cricket at earlier ages. Parents are following the example of Tiger Woods and working on technically perfect players at the age of 5 or 6. Gone are the days of playing different sports and developing all round athletic skills first. They are either playing cricket, watching TV or on their games console: Nothing in-between.

As a result we are seeing players with more experience but less athletic prowess and a greater chance of injury coming through the system.

We all want to be skilful as skill equals better performance. We can't continue to focus only on playing and practicing if we want well rounded players.

That's where proper planning and effective fitness work comes in. Not the 'run-into-the-ground' type of fitness, but the type that stops injury by strengthening muscles and ligaments, improves functional power and makes players faster with more agility.

How do you progress this type of work if you are in season or have an extended season?

Everyone can find time to be more general in their training. By general I mean avoiding cricket now and again to do something else. The something else could be playing another sport competitively, training in the gym or just having a knock about game of football with your mates.

Almost any other stop-start type sport has a crossover to cricket. If you can run fast chasing a football or hockey ball you can do so chasing a cricket ball. Similarly, doing weights in the gym (or even a few press ups) will strengthen you up giving you more power and speed.

More importantly, it gets you muscles working in different ways to playing cricket. You are not locked into the patterns that, over time, cause injury through overuse.

Unless you are a genuine prospect for playing professional cricket and are over 18 years old there is no need to specialise in cricket to the exclusion of everything else. In fact, it's counter-productive.

Once you have started some general training, like a couple of gym sessions a week between playing days in the summer, you can start to focus.

Focusing your training on a specific goal for a set number of weeks is advantageous for the long season. It allows you to develop athletic skills even when you are playing games.

Divide the playing season into smaller periods (around 4-6 weeks) and focus your general training on one element like strength or endurance.

For example, if you were playing an Indian season you would not have time in the off season to develop your strength to any great degree. So you divide up the season and decide to focus on improving your strength in January and May.

For those 2 months you hit the gym 2-3 times a week following a progressive overload plan. To make sure you don't lose other fitness elements you might also make sure you do skill drills at a higher intensity and have a longer warm up before cricket practice or play. By the end of the second month you would be stronger without losing any skill.

3. Plan carefully and avoid the mistakes

One of the down sides of this approach is it needs careful planning to avoid over exerting yourself. Athletic skill is accumulated gradually over time. If you try to do too much or have no recovery time you will quickly see a drop in performance.

You can see the general guidelines on how much rest you need here. Always err on the side of more rest than less in season, especially towards then end when your body is aching for some time off from cricket.

It's also worth noting the things to avoid in season unless you have very carefully planned recovery:

• Long workouts (over an hour)
• Very long skill sessions (over two hours)
• Very heavy lifting (less than 5 reps), especially two leg lifts like squats and deadlifts
• High intensity plyometrics

All these can have very long recovery times and most players in season will not have to time between actual cricket sessions to fully recover.

With all in season training you have to be flexible in your plan. If your game is rained off you may be able to squeeze some extra work in instead for example.

The final secret to training effectively over long seasons is to get your nutrition up to scratch. The right nutrition will not only make you healthier, it will give you energy and help you to recover.

I always advise following the Precision Nutrition system, especially when it comes to getting in the right amount of good carbohydrates from beans, rice, potatoes, fruits and vegetables.

Whatever way you eat or train, long seasons are a challenge for players, even at the professional level. However you can make progress if you are prepared to think a little. Modern cricketers at every level can't afford not to.

Image credit: RB.rajesh

Despite being a team game, the business end of a cricket match is one on one. This solo battle of wills is one of the greatest challenges of cricket. Think Donald against Atherton and you get the idea.

Batsmen are constantly trying to get into a rhythm of timing while it's the bowlers job to prevent or upset that timing. If either player knows what his opponent is trying to do, they have the advantage in the battle.

It's part of the reason that good batsmen are better 'readers' of bowlers. They have an almost uncanny sense of the length before the bowler has even released the ball, giving them more time to play the shot. Similarly, the bowler who has a sense of what the batsman is about to do can counter their tactic.

It's well documented in sport science research that better batsman are better at picking up line and length early. Researcher Tim Noakes found that expert batsmen are 10-12% faster at this. They can subconsciously read the tiny telltale changes in the bowler's action. They are also more experienced at reading game situations and know when a certain ball is more likely.

Bowlers also tell of getting a feel for when a batsman is about to play a big shot. Perhaps a couple of maidens have played out and the batters grip tightens or they are twitchier between balls.

It's so subtle that it would be impossible to make a list of things to look out for. Even the players don't quite know how they do it. It's something that comes with hours of playing, practicing, watching many different players and building up a subconscious database of experience. Some examples are:

• Changes in run up speed
• Position of the front shoulder
• Position of the wrist
• Point of release

But learning how to spot that takes time. To become a master may take 10,000 hours of practice, which is about 10 years doing nothing but play cricket.

While you can start now, understanding some of the tactics you and your opponent can use will give you a shortcut.

Coming up in the next part I'll go over some of these tactics. Click here to go to part two now.

Image credit: HNM_1977