One of Bob Woolmer's batting drills was the one-legged drive which I featured right at the start of the Coaching to Win series.

This gem of a drill helps players who lead their forward movement to the ball with their heads. (Not your Pietersen, Amla or Gayle who lead with their feet but more like the Bell, Ponting and Strauss).

Bob would ask the batter to not move their feet, yet wait for the fuller ball to bounce and move their head towards the line of the ball.

What does this drill develop?

I was terrible at science when at school. I couldn't see the relevance of it and found every way possible of avoiding lessons. However, the bit that I did like was experimentation.

The fact that I was allowed to try things, to see if they work or don’t work was great and I have taken that on into my coaching.

Experiment with these opposites with your individual players and see what impact they have on their performance/experience when catching and batting.

The final part of my series on how to become a professional cricket coach looks at the role of the internet and creating your own practical opportunities to extend your learning.

To get up to speed with the rest of this series, take a look at part 1, part 2 and part 3.

So where do I go online to build my knowledge? Apart from PitchVision Academy of course! A couple of websites that I visit frequently are:

This is a follow up to last week's question from Paul Wood asking how he can progress as a coach. I recommend you read last week's article first.

Last week we looked at the formal pathway through to "performance" level (rather than helping beginners). This week we are going to go one step further and look at both elite coach education, and informal options that are available to all coaches, irrespective of qualification or coaching environment.

I recently received an email from a coach who has a plan to become a professional coach He asks what is the best path and process he can follow to help him meet his goal.

Here is my reply. This is the first part and I will finish off in the next article (link at the bottom).

This week I have been lucky enough have interviewed 32 excellent coaches who are all vying for ECB Level IV spots.

An innovative idea popped up twice that I reckon could be of use to batsmen who have not found a way - as yet - of freeing the swing of the bat and as a result, struggle to hit with real power.

This drill is a bag of tricks!

I want you to look at a couple of pictures.

The first is Dennis Lillee in his pomp. 9 slip fielders in a range of 'ready positions'. Some are crouched low and others more upright, ready for the edge.

The second is 4 slip fielders all in similar ready positions: Lots of knee flexion and hands low in a keeper-like position.

I have a confession. I hated bowling machines as a player. I wasn't alone. Yet others loved the same thing. It really is the Marmite of cricket practice.

I found it really difficult to get the timings of my movements right and often found myself rushed and off balance at point of contact. It became very frustrating when others were enjoying every bowling machine session.

It's can be a coaches' worst nightmare to lose the teams best player or captain ahead of a crucial match.

Australia are not the only team to suffer a crucial injury leading into a high profile series.

It only seems like a few years ago when every team had at least one batter who would walk to the wicket with his team-mates giggles carrying across the outfield.

We were all waiting for the inevitable death rattle as the "bunny" plays all round a straight one.

Top level coaches now encourage the "bunny" to think about scoring runs rather than just surviving with leaves, blocks and evasion. As a result it's common to see lower order players reverse sweeping and moving across their stumps to tuck the ball into the on-side for one.

So how can we develop the next generation of lower order batters in our clubs, academies and schools?