Last weekend I headed up a great group of cricket coaches at Sportsfest 2013 in the grounds of Wormsley Estate.

I was working with a group on throwing and they were struggling with both their alignments and also to understand my instruction.

My fellow coach, Ian Simpson, asked if he could do something with them and within 2 minutes he transformed their experience, understanding and ultimately, their performance.

The Simpson Drill

Initially, this is a stationary ball drill with intervention poles, cones or obstacles that train the thrower to align the feet, hips and shoulders to her target.

The player starts on a cone, runs towards the ball, picking it up and then has to channel their movement and energy through and out the other-side of a narrow corridor which is aligned with the target area.

Any obstacle will do. We found that intervention poles (as used with bowlers) are good at it promotes the body to stay upright throughout the throw. But if you don't have intervention poles then cones or discs are fine.

The Simpson Drill Progressions

1. Change the angle of approach. to simulate moving left or right to the ball.
2. Set up 3 "Simpson drill" corridors of different colours or numbers. A colour/number is called by the coach. You then have to head as fast as you can to the corresponding coloured/numbered corridor and execute your technique and skill. This incorporates decision making skills, an essential attribute if you want to be a top fielder
3. Incorporate a moving ball: Ask a coach or someone else who is practising the same drill, to roll a ball through the corridor so that you meet it prior to then aligning yourself to go back through the corridor towards your target. The roll may have to be made from close to the corridor entrance in order to make the drill effective yet any ball momentum into the pick up makes it game specific.
4. Add in some functional movement patterns:
   • Start in a prone position, face down and pop up: utilises core, upper body and legs
   • Start in a prone position face up. Again, core, upper body and legs are incorporated in this movement.
   • Place 4 intervention poles or cones in a tight line. The fielder has to shimmy quickly between the poles/cones before approaching the ball and aligning themselves with the corridor and target.
   • 2 cones about 5 meters apart to form a goal. Underarm balls to the opposite side of the goal that you have created. The fielder moves across, flicks the ball back in an underarm fashion and you roll another ball to the other side of the goal. Repeat this twice and once the 4th ball is flicked back the fielder then moves quickly to the corridor and executes the Simpson Drill.
   • 5 short catches into Simpson Drill.

And the list could go on!

Thanks to Ian, I now have plenty of tricks to help further develop young players technical understanding and individual throwing performance.