The better we as coaches become at hitting balls, the quicker our fielders will move to elite in the deep. So get out there with your high catching coaches kit and practice your hitting.

I am often asked if the "English" method of high catching (fingers down) is better than its "Australian" counterpart.

There are more balls hit into the air now that at any other time in cricket history. Matches and tournaments can be won and lost on the ability of a team or individual player to cling onto a Skyer.  So it is vital for us to develop the skills of our players to cope with this aerial onslaught.

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.

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.

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.

This is a guest article by Laurie Ward from The Complete Cricketer Academy in Cape Town, South Africa.

In a recent ODI, England lost their 100% record against minnows Bangladesh, losing by 5 runs.

During that match they “threw away” at least 4 overthrows with unnecessary shies at the stumps when batsmen had clearly made their ground.

Judging by the number of questions we get here at PitchVision Academy, a lot of players and coaches have a cricketing problem they need solving. Everyone has something; a technical flaw in the cover drive, not quick enough bowling, getting gassed with low fitness levels and a hundred other things.

We also know that there is a frustrating gap for most of us.

The coaches and experts with the answers to your problems are expensive or inaccessible, or both.

At least they were.

Imagine the scene, you turn up at nets. The bowler's bowl and the batsmen bat. Sometimes they swap places. It's all pretty typical.

The guy is just expected to never make a mistake, even when all the work he gets involves taking throws from fielding practice.

The problem of coaching a specialist

In part 1 of this series we looked at why middle practice is so important and how to deal with the problems of running a middle practice session. Today we are looking at what types of scenarios you can set up, and how to keep them interesting to everybody, even the guy stuck at third man.