In Top Gun, Tom Cruise looked cool in his Ray-Bans. Many men tried to emulate his effortless machismo (and still do). In a way, you can emulate him too, but not to look good: To improve your cricket.

As we have talked about before, it takes around 10,000 hours of playing and practicing cricket to get really good at it.

Similarly, part of a fighter pilots training involves logging a certain amount 'flight hours' to notch up the necessary experience to go and shoot baddies.

So as a cricketer, it makes sense to log your own 'flight hours' to find out how close you are getting to the 10,000 hours.

It's pretty simple to do. Just keep a notebook with a running total of how many overs you bowled or minutes you batted in the nets or in the middle.

It will motivate you to practice harder and longer if you realise you need to log another hour or two in the week to stay on track towards your month, year or 10,000 hour goals.

So put down the shades, pick up a pen and be more like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

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