I would not call myself particularly old fashioned in my approach to coaching batting yet I have really enjoyed the purist first week of the ICC Champions Trophy.

The basics of batting against spin are different to the basics of batting.

I’m on a crusade!

A batting longer crusade.

Times have changed.

Remember Josh, the little fella from last week who was working on hitting the ball harder with more control using a shallow rather than steep batswing?

My little mate Josh, is a 14 year old batter. Josh loves the game and is has one of the best practice ethics in the whole school. A top boy.

MS Dhoni first impressed me on my first India tour back in 2006.

For me, the start of any season brings a huge levels of anticipation, excitement and is also tinged with a few butterflies.

In 2002, I predicted that a 12 year old was, one day, going to play International cricket for England.

He was incredibly skilful with the bat, a fantastic athlete even at that age and had the ability to dominate the game against his peers.

His name?

At training it’s easy to “just bowl” for long periods. This is useful for batsmen, but not good for you as a bowler.