In opposition to the traditionalist’s view of preparation, England’s bowlers prepare for the first Ashes Test of 2009-10 by skipping a warm up match.

Critics say that bowlers need competitive overs ‘under the belt’ rather than hours in the nets.

It’s a common quandary for those lower down the scale too.

Good young players could easily play 5 times a week what with club games, youth games, school and representative matches. Even senior players could get 3 or 4 games in a week; weekend matches and evening slogs are easy to find.

So do you follow the England example and make time for practice at the expense of a game, or do you take the other view – the more cricket the better?

What do you need?

The key to answering whether you should play or practice is to ask yourself this: what do you need?

Competitive games (such as playing in a midweek twenty20 league) give you something different from practice in the nets. Neither is wrong, but one or the other is bound to be better for your situation.

• Games: Games count and that means pressure. Score is being kept and mistakes can cost your team the game just as good performances are noted by the selectors. It’s also physically more demanding requiring stamina to bowl 12-20 overs a day or bat for 2-3 hours that you can’t develop in the gym or training ground.
• Nets: By ‘nets’ I mean general practice – throwdowns, bowling machine, bowling drills, fielding drills, PitchVision and the like. These things allow you to work on specific skills. You may want to hone your drives, practice your line and length or work on technical changes.

You can’t easily replicate the mental and physical demands of games in practice, and you can’t work on specific skills in games.

So it’s simple. If you want to improve skills, do more practice. If you want to improve you match fitness and mental strength, go for games.

What about form?

The other big reason players cite for playing games is to get into form.

1. A player has a run of poor scores or figures
2. He feels out of form
3. He plays more (club players might play Sunday friendlies or midweek games)
4. The act of playing extra games gets him back into form
5. The runs/wicket come back
6. The player doesn’t play any more extra games because he doesn’t want to play himself out of form again.

Except that logic is flawed because form doesn’t come and go on its own whim. You are in control. You just need to know what to do to get the feeling of form back.

You can find out how to do that here.

And for most people that doesn’t include playing extra games.

Of course, it’s very personal. Form is really about how you feel rather than the reality. Because of this some players might just want to feel their way back into form by hitting a couple of boundaries in a game, or getting those ‘overs under the belt’.

In the England bowler’s case the question is answered like this: They have played some matches and are all used to the pressure. Now they are going away to work on specific skills (like how to swing the kookaburra ball in humidity, and what to do when it stops swinging or doesn’t turn).