Kate Warne-Holland - Millfield's fantastic Director of Tennis - recently ran a drill that inspired me to adapt it for cricket.

 The orginal 3 player drill involved several steps: The feeder puts the ball into play, player one hits a ball down the line. Player two hits the ball cross court. Player one hits the ball down the line (from the different side of the body). Then player two goes cross court (from from the different side of the body). The rally continues until the ball goes dead.

Kate ran the drill for two minutes and applied some measurable scoring criteria to the drill. She asked player two to award himself a point for an excellent cross court shots which met the following criteria: Was it hit flat and with pace? Did it land within one metre of the baseline or side-line? Kate kept a log of how many opportunities Player two had to score a point. Kate then compared her total to the total that of the player.

Interestingly, around one in three opportunities to score were taken throughout the session.

Here's how it got changed to a cricket fielding drill:

1. The feeder underarms the ball at pace to the left of the inner ring fielder A (ball movement 1).
2. Fielder A moves to his left, picks up the ball and throws it towards the rubber disk placed in the centre of the drill. This throw simulates a throw that is aimed to hit the base of a set of stumps.
3. Fielder B moves to cover the line of the ball (simulating backing up). He has to assess the angle of the previous throw and anticipate where the ball will be at pick up¹.
4. Fielder B gains his balance before throwing the ball at another disk. Again, this simulates a stump hit.
5. Fielder A's job is not done. He moves from his initial throw to then back up throw number 3.
6. After pick up, Fielder A throws the ball back to the initial feeder who then puts the ball back into the drill. This throw should be into the mit without bouncing. The Feeder should not have to move to gather the ball.

How do we score the drill for cricket?

Run the drill for 90 seconds:

Fielder A can score by:

• One point: Hitting the rubber disk (at pace) on throw 2 after a clean pick up.
• One point: Hitting the feeder with her return throw (on the full at pace).

Therefore, there are two scoring opportunities per round. How many rounds can be completed by your players in 90 seconds?

With this in mind, we can ask,

• What is the impact of fatigue on performance?
• How can the three players work together and support each other?
• Can each fielder take more than 30% of their opportunities?

Scoring the drill as a team

You could make this a team rather than an individual drill. Points are awarded for Fielder A's throws and also for Fielder B's throw if it hits the second rubber disk.

How many points can a team get in 90 seconds?

We had two drills set up on a hockey pitch two teams running against each other. The competition was excellent.The contest ended when each of the team members had performed each of the roles within the drill, the points were tallied up and one team was victorious.

It's a top individual and team drill. Give it a go.

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¹The one rule I would introduce is that the backing up fielder can only move once the ball is in the hands of the throwing fielder.