Cricket Practice - Another Nail in the Coffin

I was leafing through some old the Cricketer magazines, like you all do I'm sure, when I came across an article in the October 2011 edition (pictured), of relevance to one of my familiar themes.

It is all very well for one to criticise things that they see as flawed, however without then going on to say what should replace those nonsenses, leaves your criticism hollow.

I have been unable to find the article online, so will reproduce here. It is accredited to Crispin Andrews in the 'Expert Eye' column, page 24, for any subscribing hoarders out there, just in case you do not believe me. To be clear, I am not making this up!!!


Expert Eye

If you want to improve your game then forget about nets, throw-downs and fielding drills. Instead juggle, play on the Nintendo Wii and hold a pencil in front of your nose until your eyes hurt.

Last year Zoe Wimshurst, a visual performance coach, tried out some of these ideas on the Leicestershire squad. Over a six-week, pre-season period, 24 first teamers and Academy players worked on not just batting, bowling and fielding, but on improving their eyesight.

"So many decisions a cricketer makes are based on information coming to them through visual signals," says Wimshurst, who also works with the British Olympic team and runs her own consultancy Performance Vision. "The quicker those signals come in, the more time the player has to make a decision and get their body into the right position.

Wimshurst tested the players' visual skills and then split them into four groups. The first did practical visual training: juggling and kicking balls simultaneously, catching a ball with an unpredictable bounce to help reactions and moving pencils towards their nose to strengthen eye muscles. The second group used an online vision trainer that helped Clive Woodward's England win the Rugby World Cup in 2003 while the third played Mario and Duck Shoot on the Nintendo Wii. "All these help players scan ahead, get both eyes working together and assist peripheral awareness," Wimshurst says.

The fourth group did only additional cricket drills. When tested again, this group had improved it's visual performance and cricket skills least. The winners? Those pencil pushers, although the Nintendo boys ran them close.

The batsman Jacques du Toit from the pencil group, is convinced the sessions helped. "My peripheral vision improved, no doubt," he says. I can keep a clear picture of fielders without having to look up at the last moment ans take my eye off the ball."

So the next time some well meaning psychopath requests some laps of the park to 'warm up', tell them you are working hard staring at a pencil thank you very much.

Further corroboration  that orthodox training methods are very limited comes from this site which I shall let you peruse at your own convenience. In a seemingly decent piece, some quotes may appeal to the teenager in you, I've picked out my favourites:

" if you want to improve your cricket, you need only concentrate on six inches"

"cricket is a mental game"

"What is so surprising is that despite the fact that everyone knows cricket is a mind game, most players and teams practice their technique, but spend little or no time developing the mental skills "

"Once you have mastered the skills of cricket..."

"you need to be sufficiently aroused to perform at your best. But if you become too aroused, your performance will suffer and you'll start to make mistakes"

"Cricketers often allow their arousal level to become too high"