PitchVision batting coach Gary Palmer has been causing a bit of a stir.

After years of experimenting and developing he has come up with the ultimate batting session.

A batting session that is so effective and so complete he has been showing it to open-mouthed coaches at several first-class counties.

But here is the kicker; it teaches you to bat in a way that has never been taught before.

Gary calls it 4 Angles, and it’s the only session you will ever need as a coach or a player.

Mark Garaway and David Hinchliffe discuss batting collapses in the light of India and England’s poor performances on tour. Every team has had a collapse, so the team talk about ways you can at least try to prevent them in your side.

Iain Brunnschweiler joins the show on the phone to talk about his work with the England Under 17 players in a recent camp, and also his Inspired Cricket Manual.

Just as with the pace bowlers in a previous article, we are concentrating on drills and progressions in pre-season. This week it's the turn of the spinners.

Bowling from the Delivery Stride Drills

 It is a real pleasure for me to welcome Iain Br

PitchVision Academy’s newest coaching panel member is Iain Brunnschweiler, former professional player and a coach at Hampshire and England’s Development Programme. In this article he gives an insight into a recent high performance camp he ran.

If you could boil preseason training down to its most basic and important elements what would you be left with?

The answer is the following 4 ingredients that anyone can mix together to improve their game in the shortest possible time. Think of it as your cheat sheet for what to work on in preseason.

That’s something which is especially important for those of us with limited time to train.

How strong should you be? Well, that's relative, but here are some general benchmarks.

Tennis balls: bright, light and fluffy; obvious descriptions.

But what is not discussed is how much harder they are to catch than cricket balls when at speed.

Cricketers won’t admit this because everyone knows a cricket ball is one of the most dangerous things in the universe, but it’s true!

Because they are so light and have high rebound properties, they take more skill to catch than a heavy and hard cricket ball.

There no worse practice than when a set of bowlers practice one element of the game; and the batters try to work on another element entirely. 

Disjointed net sessions are counterproductive because nobody gets what they want: least of all you as the coach.

This is a simple yet highly effective drill I have used with players right up to international level to improve straight driving.

The drill is to get players to hit balls with all your weight on the front foot, the back leg in the air. The feed starts underarm before progressing through to throw-downs and bowling machines.

In the last few years modern innovative shots have become far more common.

But without tactics, all those dil-scoops, switch-hits, fine sweeps and charges down the wicket are ineffective.