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.

The key to batting early on is more about the shots you don’t play more than the ones you do.

From the opposition’s point of view, bowling with the new ball at new batsman and not making them play is wasting the chance to get wickets.

So as a batsman you must forget what shot to play next, and just consider what shots you aren’t going to play.

Preparation is the key; before you even face your first ball of the innings you must decide to play it safe, at least to start. 

When you bake a cake you don’t wait until it’s in the oven before making it taste good. A good cake is all in the preparation.

Cricket is just the same. When you put in the work mixing the right ingredients, you know you will be proud of the results.

So, if the weeks before the season starts is the prep time of cricket, what are the ingredients?

Imagine you scored 220 of your 50 overs and you now have the opposition 185-8 with 5 overs left.

You’ve bought your openers back on to finish the job, and rudely the last few batsmen are defending like their life depended on it.

You can stick with the strike bowlers and hope the batsmen get bored or the bowlers are fast enough to blast them out.

The game will end in a draw and your hopes of a strong league position fade a little more.

Or you can bring on your more occasional spin bowler.

Too many of us are guilty of the big Friday night out ahead of Saturday’s game; even professional players play the ‘rain card’,  trying to decide if it will rain the next day in order to justify a night out in town.

But how is this for a justification for your ill behaviour: Going out is research because batting is just like a big night out on the town.

The first pint, the first ball

It’s a simple calculation:

Desmond Haynes was a world-class batsman. He is a world-class coach. The unique skills he can teach are invaluable to any player (or coach) with the desire to improve.

But you will never get to have coaching from him.

 This video is the 3rd free preview of the online coaching course Batting Lion: the Desmond Haynes Masterclass.

One of the secrets of success of the famous Greenidge-Haynes partnership was their working relationship. They were far more than the sum of their parts.

Here’s a common problem; you are batting in a run chase and the rate is climbing. Your big hitter is back in the pavilion and you have always been more of a touch player.

Easy, think of the chase as less about a sprint and more about a marathon.

Chasing runs rates is just as much about pacing trying to finish it as quickly as possible.