At the weekend I attended the Hertfordshire Cricket Coaches Conferences where there were a couple of sessions run by a good friend and one of the best coaches I know, Pete Williams. Pete does a lot of work with Essex, particularly with their new fast bowling academy and this session included work with some of Hertfordshire's Under 17 bowlers.
At one part, they were asked to put cones in the area they wanted to pitch the ball based on a certain game scenario and then to bowl to hit the cones. This is a simple and fairly standard coaching technique I will use to get bowlers to understand what they are trying to achieve and why. Then they have to bowl to that plan. But that's not the end of this practice. The stumps at the non-striker's end are then moved about two thirds of the way down the pitch and the bowlers bowl from those stumps, off just five or six paces, to hit the same cones. The stumps are then gradually moved back towards the normal position with the same target.
Of course it's much easier but what is the effect? At first sight it may seem that this is bad practice, encouraging short pitched bowling. In fact, what it requires is the bowler to really complete the action, to get the front (non-bowling) arm going right back behind the body, exactly what is required for fast bowlers. Full blooded commitment to the action, following through and trusting yourself is absolutely vital. So often I can identify the bad balls simply by the front arm not taking the bowler through to the target and not fully completing it's circle behind the body. This is a drill I will be using during my coaching sessions from now on to help with this.
