Lesson 3: Pre-Season Training

The full swing is an important swing in the game that we use to generate power. It is particularly important against spin. You may decide to work on this swing if you are struggling to score against spin or you feel like you are lacking power.

Common issues with the full swing:

• Not committed enough to the swing.

• Hands too low in the backswing making power generation difficult

• Swing too folded with the arms rather than fully extended.

Activities to fix:

• -Drop feeds and underarms against spin and pace to learn the swing and improve deficiencies.

• Lots of spin throwdowns focusing on hitting the ball straight. As you get better, you can expand to hitting different areas of the ground.

• Sidearm straight and midwicket power hitting.

• Any activities where you are hitting with a full swing.
  
  

The check swing is an important swing that we use for more control, especially against pace. You may notice a lack of power on the drive or the inability to consistently control the direction of the shot. There are some common causes of these issues.

• Low back lift causing the shot to be jerky

• Weak finish position with low and weak front elbow

• Overly extended arms without an O-shape finish

• Inconsistent finish position and balance.

• Inability to hinge the hands correctly in the bat lift.

 Activities to fix:

• Start by working with some drop feeds where you work on getting a strong solid back lift and consistent and balanced finish position. You want to work on getting an O-shaped finish with a strong front elbow. Underarms can also be very useful.

• Progress to spin throws where you work on hitting to cover, mid off and mid-on. Rotating between these gaps is particularly effective. Again, we want to work on strong consistent finishes.

• Sidearms and throwdowns focusing on accessing cover, mid off and mid on are really important in order to strengthen the check swing. Focusing on a good high bat lift and finish is really important to consolidate your positioning.

• Free batting is important to feel confident and to be able to execute the shot consistently in a game related context.

Grip is one of the technical areas that we need to be really careful when adjusting. Grip is one of the hardest and most uncomfortable areas to try and change. I always recommend that you attempt all else before changing grip. Look at your balance, swing mechanics and contact point before you go changing grip. If you are looking at changing your grip, it is likely because of one of these reasons.

• The ball is slicing off or hitting the outside half too often (bat is too open)

• The ball is skewing to the legside or hitting the inside half too often (Bat is too closed)

• Your hands feel too close together causing you them to feel cramped.

• Your hands are too far apart, which cause them to not work together.

Activities to fix:

• If you are going to adjust your grip, the first thing to do is to decide exactly why and what problem you are trying to remedy.

• The starting point would be too make the adjustment to the grip and get comfortable with it. You are going to have to make compensations to your swing, because it is likely that you have learnt some inefficiencies from your old and inefficient grip. I find the best way to address this is to set up gaps at mid off and mid on and practice hitting full swings to drop feeds, underarms and overarm spin throws. The best way to get comfortable is to let your body explore self-correction. Focus on the gaps and try to hit the ball hard.

• You should also get used to hitting some check swings. Again starting with drop feeds and underarms and then spin throws. Set up some gaps and develop the confidence to hit the ball where you are trying to hit it.

• From here, you really want to get comfortable with your new grip by facing different types of bowling. Spin and Pace. Short and full. Defend and attack.

• Give this process 4-6 weeks and then I recommend finding what is comfortable. Sometimes that will be going back to your old grip. At other times you might persist with the new grip or find something in between. It’s worth trying for a period of time, but its also worth noting that there are heaps of examples of players who are successful with unconventional grips. Don’t stick with something that makes you worse.

Trigger movement is one area of batting that I see a lot of people getting wrong. The first thing to say is that this is another area of technical focus that you can get yourself in to trouble. I want you to understand that we want this to be consistent. I see way too many players who are constantly tinkering with their trigger movements and giving themselves no chance to be successful and consistent. It is definitely one of those pick and stick areas of batting. I would argue that most players don’t require a trigger movement until the bowling gets above atleast 110 to 120 kph. Allow your swing and batting to progress naturally. You will naturally notice a time when you need it and then you can start to explore your options.

There are generally 3 different options for trigger movements.

1. Back and across movement

2. Late bat tap

3. Wave of the bat just prior to ball release

Some people will use a mixture of these 3 options and rarely you will see alternatives such as forward presses or walks at the bowling.

The main purpose of a trigger is to give you more time and to make it easier for you to react. When we are static and still at release, it is very difficult to get moving or play an aggressive shot.

If you are looking at making a change or adding a trigger, I recommend trying all 3 options. From there you can experiment. Once you settle on a trigger, there are several activities we can use to get it working.

Activities to Fix

• -The chalk drill is great for working out where you want to start and finish for back and across triggers. Mark your front and back foot starting position and then your finish position. Get used to getting in these positions. Start with smaller movements first and increase the size if it feels comfortable.

• -Underarms and sidearms, first focusing on driving and defending is a great way to get comfortable with your trigger in a safe way.

• -As you get more confident, you want to start testing your trigger against full and short balls, first in isolation and then in game related practice.

• -Finally, you want to start grooving it against bowlers. Try to find a pace bowler to practice so you can get in rhythm and timing with bowlers.

Effective weight transfer when batting is the cornerstone of creating power and timing. Quality batsman have the ability to get there whole body working together and to use there transfer to create momentum into the ball. Most players use their arms way too much.

Common problems with weight transfer:

• Overstriding causing the weight to stay back behind the ball and front foot.

• Inability to get the head over the front knee with bend in the knee.

• Early striding causing weight transfer to be inefficient and unconnected to the swing.  

• Inability to transfer weight back when the ball is bowled short against pace or spin.

Activities to fix:

The first thing to identify is what sort of weight transfer problem do you have. If it is primarily a driving and front foot problem, then starting with drop feeds and spin throws is a great way to get used to getting your weight forward and over the front knee.

The progression from here is to work on progressively faster throws and activities where you are practicing getting in the right position when the predictability of one length throwing is taken away. Therefore, moving to throws that are full and short and game related training is important. First you should isolate this skill though and work on it against slower bowling.

If the problem is focused on back foot play, then getting used to defending, cutting, punching and pulling against underarm throws and throwdowns is a great starting place. The most effective batsman press forward on release in anticipation of full delivery. Therefore, the action of moving back is a press back from this position. It is really important to keep this in mind when you are training. Keep looking for the fuller ball all the time and get used to pressing back. From there, you can adjust the training to include a mix of fuller and shorter balls at increasing speeds. The idea is that we can execute this with consistency.

Contact point is really important aspect of batting. This is one of these technical areas that has no real potential negative implication of working on because it is a cornerstone of effective batting. If I was struggling for a technical focus in this stage, then contact point would definitely be one of the focuses that I choose. Identifying a contact point issue is pretty easy. Getting caught in front of the wicket a lot is a red flag. As is being caught behind consistently.

Contact Point Issues:

In my experience, contact point issues are often caused by the following issues.

• Early striding on ball release which results in early contact (early body early hands)

• Ineffective and out of time weight transfer also causes early contact.

• A misunderstanding about where good contact point is.

Activities to fix:

• To improve contact point, we first need to establish what a good contact point looks like. We want to get used to the idea of hitting the ball under our eyes and behind our front foot. Activities like slow underarms and drop feeds to establish a good late contact point are important.

• Progressing from here, focus on moving late into and through the ball. In my experience, this is the most important aspect of improving contact point. Being aggressive with your mindset also makes it easier to contact the ball late. Sidearms, spin throws and facing bowlers whilst focusing on moving late and contacting the ball late is important.

• No feet drills, where you don’t move into the ball can be a great way to teach yourself to move later. You can do this against sidearms, underarms or throwdowns. This is one of my favourite drills. To maximise these drills, you work really hard with your torso and head to get over the ball. From here, you bring your feet back into the equation whilst trying to maintain the feeling of moving late.

• Late defence drills are also another great way to work on contact point. Against sidearms or throwdowns, work on defending the ball as late as possible and getting it to bounce as many times as possible before it hits the net. Deflection drills down to third man are another way to work on this.

• Game related scenarios such as starting your innings and activities which include short and full balls are important to consolidate a late contact point against different types of bowling.

Falling over is an extremely common problem for batters against pace bowlers. This causes batters to be dismissed lbw or to miss opportunities to score. When this happens, the batters head will fall over towards the offside.

Common Causes:

• Incorrect and unbalanced set up.

• Trigger movement which causes fall to the offside.

• Poor discipline and over reliance on hitting the ball through the legside to score.

Activities and Process to correct:

• Regardless of the cause, the easiest way to fix falling over is to focus on hitting the ball straight. Any drills where there is repetition of hitting straight balls towards mid-on rather than midwicket are going to assist in controlling head position.

• Start with activities against underarm throws and throwdowns and progress to sidearms.

• Facing inswing bowling against either a bowler or using a swinga ball in the sidearm is an important test of head control. Inswing bowling will cause you the most trouble if you are someone who struggles to control their head.