Recently I saw a coaching session that seemed to be designed not for the kids to have fun but for the coaches to impress their own will to win.

I can just imagine the drop out rate.

The reason kids come to play cricket, in my view, is to have fun. Winning is a factor but without the enjoyment more will leave than stay.

How do good coaches go about this while still teaching the skills of the game?

Keep everyone involved

Long time reader Arvind got in touch about this post:

If sledging were to be accepted as a part of the game of cricket, would we then have to coach it like the other disciplines?

That got me to thinking. Is he right and if so what else should coaches be coaching at club level?

One of the Australians hall marks in cricket is their intensity in practice.

For them it's all about getting as close to game pace as possible. Jeremy Snape demonstrated something similar in his World Twenty20 diary with the England team:

There is not much cricket played in Japan and not many places to practice. Despite the lack of cricketing culture there are pockets of cricketers. These include Shun, who emailed me recently.

Shun's problem is that he does not have much in the way of facilities or equipment to practice. The nearest nets are 2 hours away from where he lives.

How can he and his friends practice with no facilities?

What can club cricket teams learn from the story of Ireland's victory over Pakistan?

The proud minnows against the apathetic giant perhaps?

"They just wanted it more" the commentators will no doubt say.

Many will compare the passion of the two sides. For me this, Irish win is about something a lot more down to earth.

They were better prepared.

While there's as many ways to approach training as there are cricketers, some things never change when it comes to improving your game. Here are the 7 elements that you might keep in mind when planning your practice:

It's not long now until indoor nets start in the UK, which means the cricket season is fast approaching.

Great stuff!

It's very easy to waste this important practice time though: Especially at club level. So to help avoid that and make sure your pre season practice helps your in season form, here are my 9 tips to better indoor nets:

Time to train is always a problem for club players. So why not combine your usual net time with time to improve your fitness?

Twice the results in half the time.

Hopefully you are already incorporating drills to improve your fielding skill and fitness. But you can go a step further by putting some conditioning work into net practice.

Bowler Combination Net

Have you ever had trouble moving the confidence and technique of your net practice to the middle?

It's a seemingly unsolvable problem but the difference can be put down to one word: Pressure

In the net you can't get out. You can groove your technique as long as you like under no danger and no need to worry about score or what's happening at the other end. Traditional net practice is not specific enough. And we all know how important specificity is.