Deliberate practice
Ready when: Playing spin, using the feet (a1) or Variations and a game plan (a2) begun.
What you are learning
Practising with a plan instead of free hitting: a set task that works 6 to 8 times in 10, made harder once it gets easy, with feedback straight away. This is how good players improve fastest.
Words on this card Over, Drive
- Over
- Six balls bowled by one bowler.
- Drive
- A front-foot shot with a full swing, hitting the ball along the ground.
Show it first for the one teaching
- Write the session's one task, such as "drive 10 balls into the off-side gap".
- Set the target so it works 6 to 8 times in 10.
- After 10 balls, count the successes: over 8, make it harder (a smaller gap, a faster feed); under 5, make it easier.
Your part while they practise
Ask a question before the drill ("what will you do on the first ball?").
Step by step
- Say the plan aloud.
- A set of 10 balls on one task.
- Count the successes.
- Change one thing (distance, target size) when it passes 8 in 10.
How much: sets of 10 balls 30 min a session 3 days a week
Say one thing Pick one line from "What you will see" for today and say only that.
The game: Beat last week
A fixed test set of 20 balls, the same every week; beat last week's count.
Who plays: the player, with a feeder or alone in a net.
How to play, turn by turn
- Turns
- Choose one test task and keep it exactly the same every week: the same distance, the same target
- 20 balls
- Count the successes and write them down
- Fair play
- The player competes only with their own record.
- Points
- 1 point for each success out of 20.
- Fouls
- No point
- Changing the task in the middle of the set
- Free hitting instead of the task
- Winning
- Beat last week's count.
- 10 successes for 1 star
- 13 successes for 2 stars
- 16 successes for 3 stars
Easier or harder
A wider target.
A narrower target.
What you will see, and what to say
- the session drifts into free hitting
Say the plan, then do it
One task, said aloud, before each set. - the success rate falls under 50 per cent
Make it a little easier
Bring the target back until it works again.
Self-check
The athlete records success rate and changes a constraint when it passes 80 per cent.
Stop and get a coach when
The athlete is tired for several days.
Fitness for this
Warm up first: how to warm up, at workonfitness.com. For strength and stretching, its exercise library shows each exercise step by step, with an easier version.
This card trains practice quality, self-regulation.
awiseathlete.com/sports/cricket/cricket-a3