Excellent session with Matt last night, I really felt it was great value for money. Forget buying a new bat to try and improve your scores - get some professional help for a fraction of the price and the ball will fly to the boundary
To review the session - The Cricket Asylum is not the easiest place to locate but once you've been there you'll never forget it! The facility is excellent with 4 nets all with pitch vision, bowling machines etc.
I had previously explained to Matt that I wanted to work on attacking shots on the short ball, specifically the pull shot which I just don't have in my locker. I also mentioned that my ratio of converting 50s was pretty meagre and that as an opener I'd like to be able to put pressure on the bowler early doors.
We started the session with some sidearm throw downs to take a look at my general setup. I actually felt very good in the net and played nicely with a lot coming off the middle. However it was clear when Matt dug the odd short one in that i wasn't in good shape to play attacking shots. Seeing this all on the video actually gave me a lot of confidence in my overall game as I could see that I wasn't going too far wrong!
As we had discussed the pull shot, Matt moved me into the right position and got me hitting balls served underarm. This progressed to pulling the ball from my normal stance and then finally pulling off the bowling machine which gives some variations and you can't just blindly hit the same shot over and over. Finally Matt sent down a mixed bag with the sidearm which felt really good apart from the inswinging yorker he castled me with!
In between, Matt also got me thinking about my game management and basically said that if I've got to 60 and haven't converted my 100 then I should be thinking more about my tactics than my technique and/or form. He's dead right as well.
We finished the session with 15 minutes of keeping - again Matt excelled. While my technique for batting is reasonable, my keeping approach is based on hard work and perseverance rather than any great skill. He suggested i take up a slightly higher stance - quite Bairstow-like really - this made me much more dynamic and helped me to move more quickly across the crease.
In all a really good session which really improved my confidence. For £40 it was well priced especially when you consider the technology that is available to you.
Author
Topic: Batting Coach - Leeds/Bradford West Yorkshire Area (Read 2856 times)