Coaching takes a focus as the team talk through the importance of how to coach, as well as what to coach. We discover one of the best ways to keep your coaching process fresh and interesting to players.

We also discussing using tablets like the iPad and smartphones like the iPhone as coaching tools, and the role of temperament in different formats. It promotes a wide ranging discussion!

Every day you have people around you whom you could extract some learning that impacts upon your performance as a coach or a leader.

Every day I learn from top-class teachers and coaches. I challenge myself to ask lots of questions and make lots of visits to the different sporting and non-sporting environments where these coaches/teachers operate.

It's no secret that it's easy to struggle against spinners in the Sub-continent. England's batsmen have failed for decades.

Here is the inside guide to playing spin in slow, low turning conditions so you can coach your players to be a little more like Dravid.

"Watch the ball closely!"

How many times have you - and I - uttered those immortal words?

It is great information.

For some of our cricketers; but not all of them.

Gary Palmer's CCM Academy often plays at tournments with a lot of games in a short time.

As a coach this tests your skills in different ways to weekly coaching sessions and matches.

Watch the video below to find out how Gary handles the challenges including:

One of the world's most brilliant coaches said to me the other day that "Great players listen to their body, not everybody" and the quote got me thinking through my career to date as both a player and a coach.

Following on from the profiling article, this is an example of how the profile is used practically.

I'm lucky enough to work with some very talented players, one of whom was disappointed not to make the Academy cut last year. Following that decision, We sat down and worked through the profiler in January and planned our programme around that initial assessment.

The aim was to make the cut for this year.

Preseason is an exciting time of year as cricket is just around the corner.

It's a great time to put some profiling into place to help us design an strategy or coaching programme that supports your players through the season.

This summer at Millfield School we ran an experiment in improving the power hitting of the 1st XI players.

It was a new concept to us, and I wanted to see how well it would work. Here is what we did; and what we found out on the way.

We introduced “Back-loading” and played around with shifting weight in the set up as a batter waits for the bowler to release the ball.

Here is a drill that provides huge gains in distance, power, placement and tactical awareness for all of your batters.

The inspiration comes from the golf driving range. It got me thinking about how we could apply a similar concept to the practice of batting skills.

Here is the range driving drill.