There is a lot of talk about England losing the first Ashes Test because they were undercooked. But what does this mean?

There doesn't seem to be clear definition of the term. But underlying the press coverage is the assumption that some English players have not played enough competitive games to be ready for the Ashes.

If your life is like mine you always have more to do than there is time to do it. My own answer to that is the system called 'Getting Things Done' by productivity guru David Allen (more on the basics of GTD here).

How do you feel about training on matchdays?

For many club players the only warm up they do is smoking a cigarette and the only cool down is raising a pint to their lips.

But many others would like to make more of matchdays without dropping in performance. Here are 7 things you can do on the day of a match that will have a positive impact.

It takes, according to Bob Woolmer, 10,000 goes at something before you master it.

That's a lot of practice.

For me this underlines how important practice is for club cricket. As amateur players we are all limited for how much time we can give, but performance on the field is directly related to how much skills training you do. How motivated are you to improve?

As long as it is good quality skills training.

It doesn't matter how good a player you are. Without confidence in yourself you are not going to reach your potential as a player.

Ask Marcus Trescothick.

Doubt yourself and you get frustrated, lose focus and make mistakes. Have total confidence and you will make fewer errors because you can shrug them off.

It's unlikely that you listen to much radio on the cricket field. So how are radios related to your cricket performance?

It's all to do with how your brain processes information. Even when it is seemingly unrelated.

The Sharpbrains blog explains:

"You’re driving through suburbia one evening looking for the street where you’re supposed to have dinner at a friend’s new house. You slow down to a crawl, turn down the radio, stop talking, and stare at every sign."

You may think that the aim of practice is to get better every time. Why bother practicing at all if it is not going to improve your performance on the field?

Brain expert Tony Buzan disagrees.

After 30 years of research into how your brain develops skills he has worked out that in order to reach your goals it is invetable that you will fails somewhere along the line. It's how you deal with that failure that makes you a better cricketer.

There are no lazy bowlers.

At least I have never spoken to a seamer or spinner who thinks his performance is lazy. Batsmen, they say, are the lazy ones. Sauntering around taking all the praise while the bowlers do the real work.

I don't bowl myself. If it is as hard work as bowlers say then you need some tips to make life at the end of your run a little less stressful.

Be Realistic

I'm sure you have seen wild claim adverts like that almost every day. How do you separate the facts from the snake oil?

It's not easy.

Getting it wrong could be expensive.

You could always ask someone who knows. You could investigate the facts for yourself to see how things match up.

But the real key to remember with these types of claims is: 'If it's too good to be true, it probably is'.

Picture the scene: It's an important league game for your side. You take to the field on a sunny day full of enthusiasm. You jog between overs, clap every decent ball and are sharp on the singles.

But things don't quite go your way. The field starts to spread and wickets are not falling as you would hope.

How long before heads start to go down and the game is played in a kind of resigned silence?