Balancing a busy life with good nutrition for cricket is tough. I'm sure we have all been in a position like Darren, who emailed me recently:

"I'm finding it hard to control my diet and to find something suitable to eat due to my unusual hours of work/activity and mix of office work and coaching.

Who has not had a mikka bouzu experience sometime in their life?

Name me a couple of foodstuffs that you would count as unhealthy. Chocolate? Doughnuts? Anything deep fried?

You can probably come up with more given enough time.

We have all been conditioned over the years to think of food as healthy or unhealthy, fattening or slimming, good for sport or bad for sport, guilty or good.

This article has now moved to here. Please update your bookmarks and take a look.

 

. 

 

 

Yesterday I was let out to travel to the swish David Lloyd club in Cardiff. I was there to interview Rob Ahmun, the Strength and Conditioning coach for Glamorgan County Cricket Club.

For a fitness geek like me it was a dream way to spend 45 minutes.

In the plush country club style surroundings we talked about the challenges of fitness in cricket, especially dealing with professional players in a sport with such all-consuming and ever-changing time constraints. Rob's a passionate guy and he clearly knows his stuff inside out.

Where do you draw the line when it comes to sledging in your own club games?

The whole Australia-India controversy was sparked by a possible comment by Harbhajan. Since then it has thrown up a number of issues and a lot of debate but I want to bring it back to club cricket.

Have you noticed a huge rise in chirping in your club games in the last 10 years? I have.

Ferris Bueller, as you already know, was the coolest kid in school. Who doesn't want to be a bit like Ferris?

Ferris would have been a great cricketer, had he not been busy being a 1980's fictional Amercian High school kid. Here's why.

Ferris uses bluff to his advantage

The first time I ever kept wicket in a senior cricket match was quite an experience. I was used to youth team 20 over evening thrashes at the time; done in a flash and home in time for dinner.

After 30 overs I was pretty tired of crouching, after 40 I wanted to go home and by the time 52 overs had passed and the innings closed I had to lay down. The day after I tried to get out of bed only to collapse on the floor and be forced to crawl to the bathroom. The DOMS in my thighs was that bad.

Back when I was doing my ECB coaching award we were practicing leg spin under the watchful eye of our coach tutors. I'll be the first to admit I make no claims as a bowler, let a lone leg spin. Suffice to say, I was pretty poor, even with a tennis ball in a sports hall.

The tutor spotted my efforts in the group and wandered over. "You are planting your front leg too far across David," he said. "Try landing your front foot more towards the off side."

Do you get the harrowdrive weekly email update?

If so I have had to change providers from Zookoda to Feedblitz as Zookoda are no longer sending out the email.

Please add feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com to your address books or email whitelist immediately to make sure the new email gets to you. I'll be using this service from now on.