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[thecord]

That's interesting. Our local indoor league is nothing like that. Very social, mainly younger guys playing for a laugh. Our lot even went to the pub between their semi final and final match!

[ProCricketer1982]

That's interesting. Our local indoor league is nothing like that. Very social, mainly younger guys playing for a laugh. Our lot even went to the pub between their semi final and final match!

Well I suspect they are all perfectly nice guys in their own right, not knocking them personally. Just that the league I have seen down here all the players seemed to think they were awesome. Umm, you pay to play cricket mate, you ain't awesome.

[uknsaunders]

All these reasons are why I rate a darn good training session with the machine (all different sessions from working on specific weaknesses to getting someone to bowl good lines and lengths and mix a few in there etc) over 'nets' anytime. Hell, I refuse to even waste my time with indoor cricket purely because a net session is better for me that playing that load of tosh. Only guys I've found playing indoor are the so called 'stars' of the clubs. Problem is, when you look up the stats they are not there to back them up. makes me laugh

Agree - facing a bowling machine is far better for a batsman in terms of developing your skills. Unless you have 2 or 3 bowlers right on the money, most nets sessions are a waste of time. Some of the sessions we had at Headingley were pretty intense as we had a fast bouncey surface and some guys who could get it through. I'm sure it help toughen some of the lads up. The point is the intensity required is often lacking and it becomes a gentle trundle.

[alba caerulea]

Completely agree with you Nick, intensity and specificity/realism are very important

The last club net sessions I went to I had two guys bowling lobs at me who don't get a bowl for our 3rds followed by our 1st team opening bowler bowling inswinging yorkers (think waqar but 20mph slower). End result was stumps everywhere and me batting for 25 minutes and feeling considerably worse than when I went in!

Have since had 2 sessions v bowling machine and both times have come away feeling genuinely better and learned about my technique

[uknsaunders]

I make of point of standing yards out of my ground if its just lobbers or trundlers. The net session becomes a bit more useful if you are batting from 15 yards. Also gets up the noses of the trundlers :-)

[ProCricketer1982]

At work there is a guy who plays for a different team in Worcester. He's a lvl 2 coach blah blah blah. Anyway, he  does a youth team for his club and last year I made a point of going around a few clubs to watch how they ran said 'coaching' sessions. I was not impressed tbh.

All I mainly saw was a smaller version of an adults net tbh, with some guy saying 'move your front foot' 'watch the ball' etc etc. Not really anything there I'd personally class as coaching. Bowling wise all I saw was some guy saying 'good ball little jimmy' 'well done james' etc.. Again, nothing in the way of any coaching.

What I argued with him about was: If so much time and effort is now pumped into youth cricket why aren't they actually doing what I'd class as 'proper' coaching. So actually working on individual shots with kids, learning the basic shots and drilling them into them etc. Yes keep it fun by doing the games for fielding etc but for batting and bowling (core of the game at club level really) teach them the basic shots well. The good ones will pick it up quickly and can expand.. The 'less talented' ones still become reasonable players because they can play the basic shots. Same with bowling, your good bowler will develop variations etc etc.. you 'less talented' bowler will have just had line and length drilled into them so you can at least know they won't bowl random crap.

He of course said they can't spend any time really doing individual stuff and if they do it's with the 'best' kids. I really really hated that. Before anyone asks I'm going to give the youth team some help this year, my monday nights will be spent in a lane with my machine with the little brats!


@uknsaunders - I do that to the quicks anyway! I'm pretty much always about 30cm's out my crease, knocks the bowlers off their lines and makes more things into drives.. plus if you want to 'dig it in' you have to go really short and I just laugh and watch it go over my head (in games). In the nets I just say 'stop wasting my time with that rubbish'

[alba caerulea]

I make of point of standing yards out of my ground if its just lobbers or trundlers. The net session becomes a bit more useful if you are batting from 15 yards. Also gets up the noses of the trundlers :-)

Haha great idea! I normally just go into Afridi mode and try to dispatch every ball for an imaginary 6

To be fair to the lobbers I mentioned I get on with them both well and they know that they are not great. At least they turn up to nets trying to improve which is more than I can say for a few at my club!

[Milky Bar Kid]

I come from a club with very little money, so we often share one coach between about 50 odd players. We usually do a team warm up followed by some fielding related drills. Then the remaining amount of time would be spent on a general net session. I think where we are lucky is the expertise our couch provides. Usually he would work with the colts in one or two nets, using a bowling machine and throw downs. He would work on all different things and really push you. I hate people who claim to be a "coach" and I use that term loosley, saying stuff like "you're falling over, that's why you keep getting out" etc etc but never knowing how to correct it. What good is "great ball" to a kid? They don't really know what that means. Our coach would think nothing of stopping a net and working one to one with a player on a certain aspect of their technique. This helped me the most, even of I did miss out on my much loved batting practice.

[uknsaunders]

It's interesting, seems 2 distinct topics developing.

1. How to improve the intensity of net sessions
2. How to improve individual players technical skills

Then we have the general moans about attitudes to nets. Would be very interesting with the ideas discussed here to develop a 10 week netting plan, based on the requirements above.

[ProCricketer1982]

Yes, I would be interested to hear a 10 week netting plan as well. I'm no coach so can't really comment on that. I only go off what I think would improve me (selfish I know sorry )

Would it be best to do a 'club net sessions' plan (say for 15 people avg turning up with say 2 nets) and then one for individuals??

[edynamo]

We try to plan our net program so that we build up towards the final stage of our pre-season training - a couple of weeks outside including a friendly match or two!  Typically we start off with the batters and bowlers working separately for a couple of weeks on areas they have decided they want to improve on from the previous season or the areas they know they need to work on to get going.  Each week though we 'come together' to practice fielding as a squad.  After this we then tend to run scenario nets - opening batters against opening bowlers etc which we film to review during the week, then have a bowling machine running and some fielding / technical drills in the spare space.  In between the sessions the lads tend to review some of the video footage so they have a purpose to the following session and a goal to achieve!

[tim2000s]

Where do people get the time for that? Are all your players under 25?

[alba caerulea]

And a review during the week - what level of cricket are you talking about here? 

[edynamo]

ECB Premier League cricket

[tim2000s]

ECB Premier League cricket

Which is a slightly different matter!