Question

greg-h

Well the season is over and for most of us that means no nets until next March...I really want to work on my batting over the winter so that's the question-how do you improve your batting at home by yourself?

f1dan

Try and get in with a college club. They play indoors during the winter. Otherwise it's just tennis ball against the wall.

HonalD

Any links to contacts please?

greg-h

Sorry...I feel that I have to bump this! Are you honestly telling me other than gym work the only way to improve cricket is to train with a university team? A tennis ball against a wall with a stump as a bat is something that you can do yourself at home-there just has to be other ideas out there!

TrueDub

greg-h wrote: »

Sorry...I feel that I have to bump this! Are you honestly telling me other than gym work the only way to improve cricket is to train with a university team? A tennis ball against a wall with a stump as a bat is something that you can do yourself at home-there just has to be other ideas out there!

No, the other way is to get a group of like-minded individuals, contact North County CC, book time in their indoor facility, and train all you like.

Many clubs do this, and in other facilities around the city, but usually not until after Christmas.

f1dan

HonalD wrote: »

Any links to contacts please?

Only if you want to join the NUIG club. That might be a bit of a drive from Kildare though!

amjon

If it worked for this guy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman#cite_ref-9

Prehaps his book might help too: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Cricket-Sir-Donald-Bradman/dp/1861051727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257023278&sr=8-1

Also watching TV should help. I don't mean watching TV like the way I'm watching the cycling at the moment, I mean studying it. Look at the batsmans tigger movement, look at what he does between balls, look at how level and still his head says. Study how he got out, what were the balls leading up to his dismisal like, was there a plan? Study the bowler, how did he get the batsman out, how does he vary his balls, can you pick his change of pace from behind, does he vary his angle of attack?
From my experience you should develop a sound technique based around a good defence and 2 or 3 primary attacking shots. If you look at the guys on the TV alot you will see that most good players have 2 or 3 banker shots ( watch any videos of Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe playing) whicj they fall back on time and time again. While watching TV you'll see the exceptional players like Shewag and Pietersen play shots all round the wicket, if you try to do this the chances are you be spending alot of time repairing windows and palying "golf". A realistic aim is to aim to become a good solid batsman, personally I think that Dravid of India and Atapatu of Sri Lanka are good examples of text book technique that provide a good ideal to aim towards/ imiate.
Sit down and get to know your game and your limitations. There is no point aimlessly training and not specifically working on a weakness. Try to think how you got out last season. was it bowled, caught behind, lbw ect. Which bowlers do you stuggle against most? Chat with bowlers at your club if you can, what do they think your specific weaknesses are?
There are plenty of other ways you can improve your batting other than actually batting such as working on your running and your mental approach to your innings. This can easily be achieved through sprinting between 2 cones and remebering not to "ball watch" at the non-strikers end. Your mental approach is prehaps more complicated than running but simply visualisation of parts of your innings can help this area greatly.
Finally don't forget to hit the ball, this is where I fell down as a batsman.

TrueDub

amjon wrote: »

Look at the batsmans tigger movement

You mean when he looks like a tiger, boucing around the crease? :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigger

I know you meant Trigger movement...

boksmashoffice

you can look in a mirror and practice trigger movement with maybe front foot and backfoot drives and defences. i was taught from a young age to make sure you play with a stright bat and by look in a mirror you'll know if you are cross batting.
It did Viv Richards no harm.

SwdDub

As said, there are very little options for doing much practical stuff over the winter. A few of us used to book North County CC over the winter and net but barrring that theres not much you can do.

Improve your cardio for those long protracted innings.
The old tennis ball against the wall is another option but not much use to most people as Bradman was a one off.
Practicing your shots into a mirror gets very boring, very quickly.
You could try improve your reflexes with certain exercises and stuff like reaction balls.

All in all, theres not much stuff you can do that will give you the same enjoyment as actually playing will. In this country the best you can hope to do over the winter is keep yourself in the best shape you can for when nets start back in the spring (for most clubs).

I would agree about watching tv helping though. If you can identify a player that has a similar batting stance/approach to yourself then you can modify your game from there that is if you know what you look like when you are batting. Same goes for bowling.

Basically you'll be watching someone with the same inclinations as yourself but at international standard. I had problems with my backlift last year because it was pretty high. I got some recordings of myself and roughly equated my stance/trigger/backlift and general approach were the same as Marcus North. So I had a good look at what he was doing at the crease and picked up a couple of things that I successfully implemented into my own game when I had the chance to net for a while