Many young players dream of making it as a professional cricketer. How do you give yourself the best chance of making it to the top?

One simple way is to play with the intensity and enthusiasm of a player who is in an Academy.

You see, Academy players know that talent is a flexible thing. You can be born with great natural hand-eye coordination or you can learn how to improve it over time.

I’m delighted to announce that your long wait is over.

As you know, A while ago we announced the JP Duminy was joining PitchVision Academy to produce his first ever (and exclusive) online coaching courses.

Now the courses, titled Hit the Ground Running, are available in the courses section of the site

This is a guest article by club cricketer Brian Wardle

I recently read Bounce: a book by Mathew Syed, who believes everyone has the ability to be successful.

Gifted international batsman, athletic fielder and IPL superstar: JP Duminy even has a bit of a bowl.

There’s no doubt he is a thoroughly modern professional cricketer, and one that has worked hard to become successful. You could do a lot worse than emulate him.

We all agree that good players are also mentally strong players. Yet despite the reams of coaching materials on technique and fitness, there is no system for developing confident cricketers.

You may, like me, have found yourself frustrated with players.

Despite your best efforts individuals are unable to maintain standards throughout the summer. Form is erratic and tails off at the back end of the season just when it’s most needed.

What I didn’t realise was that the training plan was the problem.

When you first walk out to bat you can find yourself “stuck” on the crease: you don’t get to the pitch of the ball and you end up playing a loose shot.

As you walk back to the pavilion you bemoan your lack of footwork.

Most footwork issues are nothing to do with your feet at all, yet many coaches continue with the mantra of telling players to move their feet.

All that does is lead to confusion and frustration.

With the constant rise in run rates, there has never been more demand for creative shots.

The reverse sweep is a perfect example: played when you need to take a risk to score quick runs by putting the ball into a gap.

In this exclusive video PitchVision Academy coach Ian Pont reveals the secrets of how to play and practice the reverse sweep.

This article is part of the “How to Improve Your Batting Shot Selection” series. To see the full list of shots click here.

The crowd-pleasing cover drive gets all the glamour and attention. Meanwhile really good batsmen know that the on drive is a far more useful shot.

Look in the old-fashioned coaching book gathering dust on your shelf and you will see the shot selection mantras. If you have batted at any level you know that shot selection is way more nuanced.

The best cricketers appear to have two or more shots to every ball.

They know exactly when to use these shots and when to cut them out. Tendulkar famously scored 241 without a cover drive (he thought it was too risky to play).

This article is part of a series designed to show you how to adapt cricket drills for your needs. To see the full list of articles in this series click here.

Drills that are designed to groove skills already learned rather than teach from scratch are the focus of this article.

Here we are going to assume that a player can perform the skill and have a feel for it, they just want to get better at it.