It's time for another guest feature and our friend Ian Canaway of Cricketsecrets.com is back with some footwork advice.

Recently I was asked: "Is footwork really that important?"

My answer was emphatic: Good footwork is the basis for achieving excellence in cricket and is the foundation for good batting technique.

• All successful strokes start with effective footwork. If you watch Brian Lara, Michael Vaughan, Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar, all of these amazing batsmen have outstanding footwork, often when these types of players don't perform it is simply due to lack of footwork.
• Good footwork allows you to time the ball well and place the ball in gaps. It gets you in the optimum position to hit the ball, so you can hit it where you want and with ease. If you have been struggling to play a particular shot for some reason it could be due to poor footwork causing bad timing and body positioning.
• With faster bowlers it is even more essential to have excellent fast and precise footwork, so that you can get into a balanced position, into line with the ball, so you can play the ball with control.

So get practising in the nets and in the middle. The more you practice your footwork against both fast and slow bowlers the easier you will find it.

You can read more on improving your cricket, learn how to score more runs and take more wickets with Ian's highly recommended ebook: Cricketsecrets.com