Fielding | Cricket coaching, fitness and tips

The Run Out Technique that Blasts Through Batting Orders

England's Paul Collingwood was a master at this throw, changing games in a matter of seconds with a direct hit.

It's called the Attacking Side technique. It works when the ball gets dropped into the cover point fielders attacking side (throwing side) and the fielder runs onto the slow moving ball at pace to throw the stumps down at the keepers end.

Spin your way to Run Out Success

When fielding in the outfield, sometimes the ball gets hit to our non-throwing side at pace, or we get to the ball with it being slightly behind us.

The pick-up that we looked at last week would not give us the balance to execute a accurate throw into the stumps.

Get More Run Outs With This "Non-Throwing Side" Technique

Most run outs in club cricket come from balls hit to fielders on their throwing arm side, but how good are you at completing run outs when the ball goes to your non-throwing side?

There are two methods to hitting the stumps when the ball goes to your non-throwing hand side. In this article we are going to look at the one that fits the ball being dropped for a single slightly infront of the fielder.

Speed is the key

3 Things Everyone Can Learn from the Women's World Cup

This week I have watched 4 live games from the Women's World Cup at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai. The standard of cricket has been excellent with some very tight tussles going down to last ball deciders.

What has this got to do with you as a coach?

The Single Best Exercise for Cricket

I was asked an interesting question the other day;

“What is the one best physical exercise for cricket?”

Now, fitness is more than one exercise.

A programme would incorporate numerous drills, exercises, aerobic training, anaerobic training, strength, power, core, weights and many other elements to boot.

Keys to Throwing Accuracy Part 2: Front arm, Thumb Down to Up and Ball Away

This is part of a series. To go to part 1, click here.

Players get shoulder soreness and injuries as a result of only using their throwing shoulder rather than the whole body to produce the pace and power needed to deliver a strong and accurate throw.

Here are 3 more tips to improve your throw with that in mind:

Keys to Throwing Accuracy Part 1: Vision


I employed a baseball coach called Will Lintern to teach the Ireland Cricket Team to hit stumps on a more regular basis in the lead up to the 2011 World Cup. The aim was to become the best ground fielding team in the world.

Our indicators were number of clean pick ups, run outs and direct hits.

Will coached a number of principles yet the ones that are easiest to remember are the 3 Keys to Accuracy:

Wicketkeeping Drills: Standing Back

We have covered some standing up to the stumps drills in recent weeks and now we turn our attention to standing back drills.

The key to standing back drills is to develop the following: The quality of the Catch/Take, Footwork, Inside Diving Catch (ankle to knee height and close to body), Outside Diving Catch (the full length one, can be called the TV catch!)

Basic Hitting Drill

5 World Class Standing Up Drills to Fast-Track the Skills of Your Keepers


Variation of drill is one of the big challenges for a coach working with keepers. As we discussed last week, we should always remember that we need to keep the practice relevant to the match as possible.

Wicket Keeping Secret: Posture is Everything!

80% of balls that are missed by a keeper go under the hands!

This is a finding from from the study I did in 2008 monitoring 52 high performance keepers from Under 11 County Age Group keepers to MS Dhoni and Mathew Prior in Test Cricket.

So why does this happen, and how do you stop it?