Steve Waugh spoke to me once about his greatest ever Test Match innings.

When he started to recall the event I was fully expecting to hear about his swashbuckling 177 at Headingley in 1999 or his top test score of 200 against the West Indies. In fact, his greatest ever innings was his 67 not out from 221 balls in a losing situation versus India at Delhi in 1996!

Anil Kumble ended up with match figures of 9/130 bowling India to victory. Waugh was dismissed for a duck in the 1st innings. He saw the way that the pitch was deteriorating and knew that a completely different approach was required in the 2nd Innings on a pitch made for Kumble. Australia were staring defeat in the face.

Waugh decided that some of his favourite attacking shots were in fact now low percentage options. He basically restricted himself to the two most appropriate scoring shots and a stubborn defensive method to get him through. 67* in a listing cause may not sound great, but it was his proudest Test match innings.

Waugh's mental fortitude lent itself to this very situation. Given the match situation, he was unlikely to stop India from winning but he thrived when mere mortals wilted. He is one of the most impressive cricketers ever to play the game in my book.

This story has influenced one of the constraints based batting against practice sessions that we are using ahead of the India tour.

1. I set up Merlyn on a spinning surface. You can do this with throw downs too. Use some extra bits of carpet to create grippy patches and a cricket ball which has rubber bands wound tightly around the seam of the ball. This makes the ball grip on the surface for longer and gets extra bounce out of a normal throw down.
2. Set the field. The field was set up for the ball spinning away from the bat so we have had 2 slips, bat/pad offside, man on the drive off side, cover point, deep cover, mid-off, mid-on, deep square short leg. A classic in/out field. Something that we may see in the Chittagong test over the next few days.
3. 1st 4 over block: The player can play however they wish for 4 overs. Keep score on a whiteboard, iPad or paper.
4. At the end of 4 overs, the score is relayed to the batter.
5. 2nd 4 over block: We ask the player to play to the following constraint; You can only sweep, back foot drive or defend off either foot.
6. The batter then plays for another 4 overs with the score being recorded just as in the previous over. The score is relayed to the batter
7. 3rd 4 over block: Finally, I ask the batter to play for another 4 overs in whichever way they see as being appropriate to the pitch conditions and the bowler ability.

The results based on 12 batters last week.

• The average score in the 1st 4 over block was 11/3 over the course of last week
• The average score in the 2nd 4 over block was 23/1 over the course of last week
• The average score in the 3rd 4 over block was 22/2 over the course of last week

Our learnings

The stats are quite telling. Most of the players became significantly more effective as their attacking options were limited by the constraint on a spin friendly surface.

We had a spread of 14/2 (the lowest 2nd 4 over block score) to 32/0 (top score in the 2nd block of 4 overs). Some of our players are more comfortable sweeping on spinning surfaces than others. These players generally scored better in Block 2 and most of them lost less wickets in that block also.

It was interesting to see that some players chose to take the constraint into the 3rd block of 4 overs: - 3 of the players simply reverted to playing in a similar fashion to how they played in Block 1. They achieved similar results - 7 players took the constraint from Block 2 into Block 3. Out of those seven players 5 were more effective than in Block 1, 1 achieved exactly the same score and 1 achieved the same number of runs but for 1 more dismissal.

Constraints practice like this helps the player to:

• Build specific skills and tools for dealing with spin
• Build awareness which helps a player to chose which tool or tools are best suited for any given situation. You can carry all the tools in the box, yet the most skilful mechanics pick the right tool for the right job.
• Develop decision making under pressure.

Follow Steve Waugh’s lead in some of your practices. He was one of the most effective cricketers in the history of the game.