Do you want to become the bowling spearhead of your team?

I can understand the feeling. I had the same one but things weren’t working out for me. Then something happened which made me into the strike bowler and the pace spearhead of my team. Read on, learn from my experiences and help yourself to become a strike bowler too.

A couple of years ago I was a fast bowler with decent (not furious) pace. I used to open the bowling and take wickets swinging the new ball.

This article is part of the “How to Improve Your Batting Shot Selection” series. To see the full list of shots click here.

The crowd-pleasing cover drive gets all the glamour and attention. Meanwhile really good batsmen know that the on drive is a far more useful shot.

The blacksmith is the clichéd image of the burly guy in the village team who goes out to smash everything from beginning to end.

Mostly he fails and it’s a mess. He swipes across a straight ball and is sent packing.

Sometimes he succeeds, especially if he has a reasonable technique to go with the power. When that happens you have to outsmart and out-skill the batsman.

1. A do-or-die attitude

There is no sight more pleasing than your yorker taking out a batsman’s stumps. Like a sniper you can use a single yet fatal blow to cause destruction.

And it’s a skill that when done at pace is worth a fortune because it wins you Twenty20 games (and there is no faster way to make a fortune than to show you can win IPL matches).

The revolutionary PitchVision Academy Problem Solver has had a major upgrade.

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.

As you know, to celebrate the launch of the new online twenty20 bowling course from Ian Pont we are giving away an exclusive video by Ian.

But all good things have to come to an end and so on Monday 16^th January we will be closing the offer. You won’t be able to get the video or exclusive follow-up content any more.

Losing lingers in the mind.

Everyone dwells on bad bowling spells. If it’s really bad you even let it worry you right into the next match, making it more likely you will bowl badly. A vicious circle of failure.

And in Twenty20 there is a fair chance it wasn’t even your fault.

Since we stopped doing the weekly PitchVision Academy podcast I’ve been constantly asked when it’s coming back.

The great news is that we are planning the new series right now and all the PitchVision audioheads can get their fix again very soon.

Think of the excellent one day ‘finisher’ batsmen like Michael Bevan, Eoin Morgan and MS Dhoni: The guys who can win a game by being there at the end of the innings.

They all have the ability to keep up with the run rate through innovative batting. It seems they can play the same ball into at least 2 different areas of the pitch.

It's the ball that either takes a great deal of skill or a total lack of it.

And it's been banned in English county cricket, but crucially not by the Laws making it a legal ball in club and school cricket.

Origins of the double-bouncer