Cricket is a game of inches. Imagine playing in an Academy trial game when you push a ball to cover and set off on a risky single.

It’s on, but only if you can get up to top speed in a couple of strides.

You have worked on your power, speed and acceleration all winter and you fly out of the blocks, you are in by the smallest margin and go on to make a huge score, get that Academy place and on into the cricket stratosphere.

Had you been half a second slower - as the old pre-training you was - then you would have been run out and missed your chance.

Picture the scene; its cricket practice day and you pull back the curtains to see the rain tumbling down. It’s natural to shrug and call the session off.

But you don’t have to be so hasty. There is plenty you can do in the rain to practice your game. It’s tough to motivate players at the best of times. When rain makes practice irregular it gives people an excuse to “forget” to come. So tell players that practice is on every week come rain or shine and then use these four wet weather cricket tips for something to do.

With the IPL set to get underway, the team discuss Twenty20 cricket from the top to the grassroots and come up with some creative ideas for using the newest format.

Plus it wouldn’t be a podcast without your questions, so David Hinchliffe and Mark Garaway discuss fitness work in the last few days of preseason and how to become a professional cricket coach (even if you have not been a professional cricketer).

Over the past 3 years PitchVision has been integrated into sport science research as part of Laurence Houghton’s PhD at The University of Western Australia. As this research program draws to a close we’ve taken time out to review our journey with the sport science community and the resulting partnership with ACE cricket academy. So sit back and enjoy this exclusive inside story.

Every club at every level craves a genuinely quick, aggressive fast bowler. They win games.

Some say it’s the luck of the draw: talented young bowlers are born, not made.

No one is born to be a bowler. Every successful fast bowler in history had to learn how to bowl fast and accurately. That means you don’t have to wait for God-given talent to arrive at your club. You can mould the young players you already have into demons.

During a break in the filming of Kevin Pietersen’s coaching course, KP and I got to chatting about fitness training.

He said he spent a lot of his gym time working on his core. It wasn’t just so he could look good on the beach between Tests. He knows instinctively that the core is crucial to batting power.

That’s because timing and power with the bat are all based on the ability to transfer your weight from the ground, through your body and into the ball.

When you bake a cake you don’t wait until it’s in the oven before making it taste good. A good cake is all in the preparation.

Cricket is just the same. When you put in the work mixing the right ingredients, you know you will be proud of the results.

So, if the weeks before the season starts is the prep time of cricket, what are the ingredients?

No one wants to be a fat cricketer or coach.

Sure, you point to the tubby players at the top level and try to fool yourself that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t work because deep down you know that being overweight just isn’t fun, especially if you want to do well on the pitch.

Losing weight and dieting and hitting the gym are even less fun than being fat.

Running on a treadmill isn’t anywhere near as exciting as scoring a hundred. Eating a cake at tea is plainly better than a protein shake and an apple.

Cricket is a simple game, but getting good during preseason gets complex when you look at the hundreds of different methods espoused by coaches and fitness gurus.

These are the things I have tried and tested over a 20 year period as both a cricket coach and fitness trainer.

Controversial? Only if you don’t follow the evidence.

I stand by every one (and have made them all at one point or another).

If you could boil preseason training down to its most basic and important elements what would you be left with?

The answer is the following 4 ingredients that anyone can mix together to improve their game in the shortest possible time. Think of it as your cheat sheet for what to work on in preseason.

That’s something which is especially important for those of us with limited time to train.

How strong should you be? Well, that's relative, but here are some general benchmarks.