Tennis balls: bright, light and fluffy; obvious descriptions.

But what is not discussed is how much harder they are to catch than cricket balls when at speed.

Cricketers won’t admit this because everyone knows a cricket ball is one of the most dangerous things in the universe, but it’s true!

Because they are so light and have high rebound properties, they take more skill to catch than a heavy and hard cricket ball.

There no worse practice than when a set of bowlers practice one element of the game; and the batters try to work on another element entirely. 

Disjointed net sessions are counterproductive because nobody gets what they want: least of all you as the coach.

This is a simple yet highly effective drill I have used with players right up to international level to improve straight driving.

The drill is to get players to hit balls with all your weight on the front foot, the back leg in the air. The feed starts underarm before progressing through to throw-downs and bowling machines.

In the last few years modern innovative shots have become far more common.

But without tactics, all those dil-scoops, switch-hits, fine sweeps and charges down the wicket are ineffective.

It’s quite the feat of fielding skill and power to slam the ball into the keeper’s gloves from the boundary edge. But in real life, there are precious few who have such a bullet arm.

But it’s not just about covering a bad arm: the relay throw is also a tactical fielding technique.

As you know, a relay throw is any throw where two fielders team up to return the ball to the stumps.

This drill is part of the PitchVision Academy fielding drills series, for more in this series click here.

Purpose: To practice a range of fielding skills at once under pressure; the pickup and underarm throw, running and throwing and chase and return.

Description: The wicketkeeper rolls a ball out in one of the 4 angles shown below. Each roll has a different reaction:

This drill is part of the PitchVision Academy fielding drills series, for more in this series click here.

Purpose: To practice fielding against drives as well as grooving batting drive technique.

Description: Players are split into teams of 6. The batting team are aiming to score as many runs as possible from a bobble feed from the coach.

We all accept the importance of a warm up to prepare your body and mind for the game if you play any serious level of cricket from school upwards.

We looked at the hour or so that our case study club, Watsonian CC, took to warm up in a league match in Edinburgh.

This drill is part of the PitchVision Academy fielding drills series, for more in this series click here.

Description: The coach hits the ball towards the fielders split into 2 groups. There must be 1 less fielder in the front group.

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.

Traditionalists breathe a sigh of relief: Modern training methods for developing fast and agile cricketers are a waste of time. We should be fielding instead.