This article is part of the "Streetwise Bowling" series from PitchVision Academy. To view the full list of tactics click here.

Pressure.

That's what makes death bowling so difficult. Any fool can fire a yorker down in a net. Very few can do it in a World Cup Final. And the punishments are severe.

Get it wrong even slightly and you watch the ball sail out of the park.

Get it right and you will be carried off the field on the shoulders of your grateful team mates. So if you are going to specialise and you want some glory then bowl at the death.

There are many theories, so to say there is one perfect way to bowl a death over is a bold claim. I reckon I have the answer though.

It's based on recent research published in International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport about how winning teams use tactics. The researchers looked at everything from the amount of dot balls and wides, through how many spinners bowled to how many left handers bowled. Every factor was examined.

And they found out 2 things. Here is what they are:

• Name: The Perfect Death
• Bowling Type: Any pace that can bowl bouncers above chest high
• Difficulty Level: 9/10

Ball 1

Nathan Bracken, master of death bowling, talks about "getting in and out of the over". This is a great bit of psychological shorthand. It means that the first ball over the over is focused on stopping runs.

This is because there is a correlation between the score from the first ball of an over and your chance of winning the match.

So bowl a yorker.

Yorkers cut the options for a batsman down dramatically and it makes it easy to defend with third man, fine leg, long on, long off, cover and midwicket. It might get you a wicket. It will almost certainly only go for a single.

You have the upper hand.

Ball 2-5

From here on in you have options: Either bowl another yorker or a bouncer.

That's it.

Certainly no length balls. They are tonked.

No slower balls, no slower ball bouncers, no double back flips with twists.

All these tricks have a place, but remember you are under severe pressure: the hopes of your team mates, the aggression of the batsman, the scoreboard. It's all on you. You need to keep it as simple as possible.

Going back to our research, we discover that sides who bowl the most bouncers and yorkers at the death also win the most games. Statistically at least, you are playing the percentages by sticking to very short or very full.

The exact make up is up to you.

Ball 6

However, the last ball is also simple: another yorker. This will get you out of the over without the risk of getting hooked for six.

Of course, the hard part is landing those balls with precision under pressure. If you want some advice on that, check out the videos and worksheets on Ian Pont's online coaching course Beating the Odds.

Good luck and enjoy it. You have your chance to be the hero!

Download and print a pdf version of this article to take to nets: click here.

This is a guest article from Strength Coach, Fast Bowling Coach and Former First-Class Cricketer, Steffan Jones.

If a fast bowler isn't being physically stressed, you're wasting your time.

Too many bowlers focus on injury prevention as opposed to performance enhancement. It's costing pace and it's costing stamina. Most importantly, it doesn't even prevent injury. Thera band rotator cuff work, band glute walks and planks will not stress you sufficiently and prepare you for the rigours of bowling fast.

Constantly applying stress to the human body is the single most important component of any training program. Stress maximises athletic potential. This is why I believe coaches are stress managers. A coach must understand stress, its cause and effect relationship on the human body and how that relationship influences adaptations that improve pace.

Take a look at the lifting numbers most bowlers achieve. They are not elite standard, whether we like it or not.

Until you start overloading and stressing yourself without the worry of injuries, you will never achieve express bowling speed. It's a fine line, and that's why there needs to be understanding from the bowler, the coach and the trainer.

Risk is worth the reward

One thing I will never do is be ultra cautious and not stress bowlers enough because of the fear of injury.

This will achieve nothing.

Remember the goal is performance, not physiotherapy. The job is to bowl faster as a result of training. That's how all bowlers and coaches should be measured.

A quality program will enhance performance as well as make you more robust and less susceptible to injuries. Injuries will happen at some stage, that unfortunately is a guarantee. How you prepare them for that moment is what will make the difference. The risk far outweighs the rewards.

“Only when standing at the brink of destruction does man truly realises his potential” - Ancient Samurai Maxim

My take home message is simple.

Stress is builds fast bowlers, but it needs careful management. Never be over-cautious, fail yourself or your bowlers and hide behind low injury rates. You will learn how far you can fall over the cliff before pulling yourself back up.

If you bowl fast, or coach fast bowlers, learn the power of adaptation and recovery like a S&C Coach.

If you do this, you will be so far ahead of the pack it will give you the edge you need to become a cricketer.

For training plans that will stress you into bowling faster, download Steffan Jones' training plans from PitchVision Academy.

This article is part of the "Streetwise Bowling" series from PitchVision Academy. To view the full list of tactics click here.

This tactic takes a lot of guts and even more self-confidence as a bowler.

Will you risk it?

It's based around the old joke that after bowling a half volley and being hit for a boundary, some wag will comment that you have "lulled the batsman into a false sense of security". It's funny, but in reality you can do just that.

If you pick your moment perfectly.

• Name: The False Sense of Security
• Bowling Type: Any
• Difficulty Level: 9/10
• Success Level: Variable

The trick to this is twofold; you need the right batsman and enough control to pull it off.

In the case of the batsman, you need someone with an obvious strength and weakness. You may have worked him out previously or you might get the idea as the game goes on. For this example we will say the batsman is great through the covers and weak off his legs. Perhaps he falls over, as is common.

Balls 1-3

Start simple by feeding that strength.

Bowl on a length or slightly fuller outside the off stump. If you can move it away, all the better. You might even bowl a half volley or two that gets crashed through the covers for four. You could care less. You are about to buy this wicket for a very cheap price.

Ball 4

Get tighter on the crease and bowl a straight ball at the stumps. Moving in to hit middle and leg should do it.

The batsman is mentally set for his booming drive, lets his head go too far and is bowled or LBW. Your bowling average is 8.00. You win.

Ball 5-6

If the plan works you have a new batter on which to plot. If it failed, you probably need to do some damage limitation, as the over has gone for eight. So revert to your stock ball and aim to get a dot.

You might also bowl a yorker here, as these are great balls to get out of an over without looking too silly.

Review how well it worked between overs and start thinking of other ways to lull the batsman if Plan A fails.

It's quite possible to do this by accident. Say you bowled a couple of loose balls early to the strength area of the batter, you can refocus on the weakness towards the end of the over and rescue yourself. Of course, your teammates will scoff when you say it was a plan, but you can always give them this article as proof.

Do you recognise this?

Bowlers have bowling with soaking wet balls, drying the ball on a towel kept in the back your trousers and fielders throwing the ball sideways as the ball slips out of their hands. Anyone who has played club cricket will know all about these kinds of challenge.

You are not alone: exactly the same issues plagued international teams in the World Twenty20.

So how can we all thrive in wet conditions?

Bob balls in water

Ex-Ireland and present South Africa Assistant Coach, Adi Birrell used to put cricket balls in buckets of water to get them soaking wet before asking the bowlers to bowl the ball in practice.

He did this because many games of cricket in Ireland are rain effected. At the time Ireland's international grounds did not have "super-soppers" or big ropes to disperse rainwater from the outfield. Therefore, he challenged his players to become world leaders with a wet ball.

Bowlers such as Trent Johnston increased their skills hugely in these practices. Ireland would then relish the opportunity to bowl similar match conditions. They knew that their bowling unit were better prepared than the opposition.

Get some old balls, a bucket and some water and try this in your net practices.

Turn back of a length into your yorker

It's difficult to land the yorker in normal conditions when under pressure. To do this with a wet ball pushes the odds significantly in the batter's favour. That's why we we saw the seam bowlers in the World T20 shifting their lengths at the death from attempted yorkers (with a wet ball) to back of a length.

You can do exactly the same: Try to hit the pitch harder and bring your lengths back.

This not only gives you a larger margin for error but also brings different reactions from the playing surface. A wet ball on a skiddy wicket is less predictable. It has been noticeable that batters have been hurried when seamers have shifted their lengths accordingly.

Bowl and throw cross seam

The number of cross seam deliveries has increased as bowlers have tried to find a way of gaining more control in the wet conditions. The more seam that comes into contact with the fingers the more stable the release position with the wet ball.

Your bowler's control increases and they are able to bowl to their fields so much better. This has been one of the reasons why the batting totals have dipped during the World Twenty20.

Fielders can learn from this also. Encourage the fielder to take a split second and ensure that the ball is placed in the hand correctly before hurling it at the target. Again, the accuracy and power will increase as a better grip is established.

The ball will move faster than the man who you are trying to run out so, take your time and then 'unleash hell' with your throw.

What have you noticed about the World Twenty20 that you can take to your games?

This is a guest article from former professional bowler, and current Strength, Conditioning and Fast Bowling Coach Steffan Jones.

Go easy on the hard work.

The only way to improve your fitness, pace and stamina is by stressing the body to the limit. You have to train hard. However, the body can only tolerate so much. Flat out effort is draining.

So how do you train and play hard without breaking yourself? Read on to find out.

Volume is not effort

Even though the volume of balls is less in Twenty20 than a first-class game the effort is far greater. As a bowler you know that anything short of maximum effort is going to go miles! Even with slower balls, the approach is flat out. In fact, we know that your heart rate never goes below 80% of your maximum in a T20 game as a bowler. I've recorded it.

That's a 1.5 hour sprint!

With that in mind, 10 sets of 3 reps of power cleans in the gym the day after a Twenty20 match is a bad idea, even though you have only bowled 4 overs.

Conversely, just because the team has just finished a first-class game doesn't mean that you need a day off. You might not have done much for a couple of days and even then it may have been at much lower effort.

So when you think about your training, remember that volume is important, but effort is the key.

Train hard after easy games

If you didn't bowl flat out the previous day, get them in the gym to do an intensive session: Anything that's heavy, fast and powerful.

Keep it simple. Then back off and recover.

Unlike batters, you win matches of cricket, so take care of yourself. You can score 900 runs in a day if you want but you're not winning a game if the bowlers are not getting them out. I’ve played in a few of those at Taunton. So, understanding when to overload and go hard, and when to back off, is a vital skill in your development as a fast bowler.

The rules of fast bowling effort

With that in mind, how many hard days can you take? The ECB directives for young fast bowlers at the minute state;

"...in any 7 day period a fast bowler should not bowl more than 4 days in that period and for a maximum of 2 days in a row."

That's not far off.

What it does not account for is effort. If you go hard you need more recovery, if you have an easier ride you can get away with more bowling. So, when considering your training, there are 5 key factors;

1. Volume. The total balls bowled per session/game
2. Intensity. The effort given in every session/game
3. Frequency. The number of times you bowl in a week
4. Expectations. For example, are you happy bowling at less than 100% or is it unacceptable? Do you want to bowl fast to get No 11 batter out and win the match or are you bowling towards an inevetable draw?
5. Overreaching. How far you are willing to push. Can you test your body; can you go through the pain barrier for the team?

It's dangerous, not very sensible or realistic to push hard in all 5 factors. This is where problems arise. You can't bowl flat out in a game, then in nets and push yourself every day for more and more. It reduces pace and increases injury.

The key is knowing when to take out and what next to put in. Timing is everything.

That's why my rule builds on the directive;

Never have 2 intensive effort days straight after each other.

Or in other words, for every hard day there needs to be the same amount of easy days. This includes games and training sessions (gym or nets).

Make sense?

This is a guest article from Steffan Jones.

You're bowling speed can drop in a just a week.

It's no good training all winter for speed, coming to the start of the season and losing the vital physiological qualities that enable you to bowl quickly. That's why understanding the timing of training is crucial if you want to stop wasting your off-season.

So, for weekend warriors that means a simple rule:

Do not have Friday off before your Saturday game

The short residual effect seen with speed means you must always peak as close to game day as possible. Friday seems a good day to me.

Make your session speed specific. Use weighted ball training to activate your nervous system and have a direct carry over to your bowling.

In season - and especially before a game - is not the time to lift heavy with squats and bench pressing and so on. That type of training has a place as it develops the potential to be athletic. But that is useless unless you make those gains transfer where it can influence performance.

It's part of your job as a fast bowler to understand how to train different qualities at different times.

Change training for maximum speed

I think the best way for me to explain what I mean regarding both "residual effect" and the importance of periodisation is by showing you my Speed Demon timetable from last season:

As you can see, I alternate a strength phase with a power phase. Due to the short residual effect of speed (you lose it more quickly), each phase has speed work in some form or another.

On the other hand, maximal strength takes much longer to decline (long residual effect). That means by the time strength ability begins to decrease its reintroduced to training. This approach is continued all winter until pre-season where to focus switches to weighted ball training. The purpose of the early phases is to gain some strength and perhaps even hypertrophy. Then as the winter progresses the training shifts towards more explosive work while keeping the muscles fresh.

Aerobic stamina has a long residual effect as well. I build this up starting with extensive tempo running and changing to intensive tempo running as we get closer to the season. It's taken out 3 weeks because we know that your capacity begins to taper after 18-23 days. However by the time the gains start decreasing, bowling is introduced to ensure the bowler has "miles in their legs" to cope with a tough cricket season.

Train at the right time

Remember, you don't lose the benefits of training if you take it out of your plan. Knowing this is so important in order to peak towards the start of the season.

If your season starts soon, good luck and remember to train on Friday!

To get the Speed Demon eBook from Steffan Jones, click here.

Speed.

We all feel the need.

Whatever your pace now, more is better. Speed creates new problems for the batsman. It's your job to create problems for that guy.

The problem is that everyone has different needs, and not all fast bowling tips work for all fast bowlers. You have to experiment with some things to see what works for you. The good news is that the feedback is instant: You either got quicker, or you didn't.

So try these ways proven ways to bowl faster and let me know how you got on:

Copy javelin thrower's legs

Fast bowling technical expert Ian Pont can be credited for this one. Ponty, after studying javelin thrower technique, realised that a straight, or braced, front leg is a powerful method of generating power. The lower body of a fast bowler and a javelin thrower are identical.

The braced leg acts as a block that throws energy up your body and into the ball.

When you bend your front leg, some of that force is lost and your pace will dip. So it's an easy win to tech yourself to keep the front leg braced like a javelin thrower. Get the drills to learn this method from here.

Grab the sight screens

This technical tip also comes from Ian Pont. It's another simple way to make a technical change that improves bowling speed. In this case, you imagine grabbing the sight screens both in front and behind you.

Doing this as you move from the front foot to the back foot will stretch your upper body to it's full extent. Our muscles are like an elastic band. When stretched they will ping back to their resting length with force. And force means speed into the ball.

Build the right body

PitchVision Academy has long screamed against the idea that gym work means bodybuilding. But, as a bowler you can build a body that is designed for speed rather than the beach.

If you are too skinny you need more muscle.

If you are too overweight you need less fat.

If you are in between you can do a bit of both.

Whatever your body type, you can do with being stronger. This is because bowling speed is improved by putting power from your body into the ball. Power is strength times speed. So, the stronger you get with weights, the faster you get as a bowler.

Raw strength is best developed in the gym with tradition methods like lifting up heavy weights. Bodyweight training has a place but at some point you are going to need to squat, deadlift, press and pull weights. So, find a gym with good trainers who can show you the right way to lift heavy, then get to it.

Join the gym to pitch dots

Simply getting strong will make a huge lift to your speed, but to add even more kph's you can learn to transfer raw strength to bowling speed with specialised tools like kettlebells, weighted balls and medicine balls.

These tools are heavier than a cricket ball, yet lighter than the free weights you find in the gym. That means they act as a bridge between the extremes of a 100kg front squat and bowling at 140kph.

Naturally, you can't just throw things around and hope for the best. You need to plan your training to peak at the start of the summer and maintain that standard throughout the season. Lucky enough, Steffan Jones has plenty of advice for you.

Stretch where your body stretches

As you know from the technical tips above, when you bowl you stretch as much as you can because the greater the stretch the greater the reflex. You can improve this stretch by improving the parts of your body that stretch.

For speed this is your thoracic (or middle) spine and your hips.

In fact, it's the case that the main difference between a "slingy" fast bowler and someone more orthodox is mobility in the t-spine.

It's impossible to be too mobile in these areas whatever your action, so you can work on mobility every day if you are especially weak in these areas. It only takes a few minutes a day to do mobilisations. You can do them as part of your usual warm up for games, gym or training. And you can do them at home as no equipment is required.

If you take the time you will find that over the period of a few weeks you can stretch further than before, grab those sight screens and get into better positions. That means more speed.

Bowl enough, not too much

One of the problems of being a fast bowler is that cricket is a long game. Sprinters don't have to reign in their speed because they run 15 100m in a day for 4 months, but that's exactly what you find yourself doing. So, the key is to find a balance.

Lucky enough, the ECB have researched how much bowling is optimal and have come up with the 7/4/2 system. I would recommend sticking to this as it avoids the dangers of over bowling (and slowing down) while giving you "overs in the legs".

Yes, it is compromise, but unless you can work out how to keep your pace up during long spells, it's the best we have at the moment.

And that's your pace primer.

I know it's a lot to take in, and will take time and planning to put into place. Only the truly dedicated to bowling fast will take advantage of the advice. They are the ones who you will see on your TV taking wickets.

I hope you are one of them too.

Want to stop bowling no balls?

It's a horrible problem because no one has sympathy for you. It's almost like people think you are doing it on purpose. The captain gives you the stink-eye every time and you feel terrible.

Worse, the more you think about it, the harder it gets to bowl well.

So, even when you do stay being the line, you bowl like a drain anyway.

Let's put an end to the pain. Today.

All you need a coin. You choose the amount.

Hit the target

I'm sure you know the phrase "bowling on a sixpence" to illustrate a very accurate bowler. In modern days the sixpence is gone, but you can still use the idea. It's just not the ball you need to land on the coin.

The method - first brought to light by coach John Harmer - involves you landing your foot on the coin.

Here is the process:

First, mark your run up as normal, placing a coin on the popping crease. Run in and aim to land your front foot on the coin.

It's difficult.

Second, move the coin to the bowling crease. Run up and try to land your back foot on the coin.

How much easier is that?

A lot.

Finally, take the coin away and focus on landing your back foot level with the stumps (the same place as the coin was).

You will find it easier to judge yet your front foot does not cross the line.

Cement the skill

Now you have a reliable method, you need to make it second nature. That is because in the heat of a game you have a lot more to think about than where your back foot lands.

You need the new method to become automatic "muscle memory".

So, every time you bowl in nets, make sure you are bowling legal deliveries.

• Outdoor nets, mark and come off your full run up.
• Indoor nets, use a single shortened run up that is also marked. Always use the same one wherever you are.

Have a coach, or fellow player, monitor your foot and track your results over time. If you see the no balls dropping away with no reduction in pace, line or length, you are onto a good thing. Keep going until it's second nature (it might take 30 or more net sessions so stay patient).

If it helps, give yourself an external incentive: If you bowl a no ball, do some press ups. If you go a whole session without an infraction, buy yourself some new bowling boots. However, bear in mind that you won't have this in games so you need the muscle memory more than the motivation.

The coin is your start point, but the real goal of less no balls takes a little more work. It's worth it when you send the stumps cartwheeling and the umpire keeps that arm down.

In the 2nd Test against England, Dhoni stood back to the spinner.

It's a tactic regularly employed in lower standard games where the keeper doesn't have the confidence to stand up. In short, it's village cricket.

But there was a method in the madness.

Jadeja was firing his left arm spin into the rough to try and catch an edge. No one was going to run down the track so stumpings were out of the question. Dhoni knew that he had a better chance of catching the edge standing a few yards back.

So, in memorial of seeing village tactics at test level, here are some more counter-intuitive moves that are just so crazy, they might work.

Follow the ball

As captain you are taught early to set a field and make your bowler bowl to it. If you move fielders after the ball has been hit there, you are just "following the ball".

That's true, but it's also true that batsmen have shots. If you can cut them off early, they are reduced to a single off their best hit and have to try and score boundaries elsewhere. Frustration breeds wickets.

So when that over smashes a ball over mid off in the 2nd over, think about putting him back on the boundary and get extra cover in tight on the single, or even catching. Suddenly his best shot is one and he is getting less strike. He might even pop it down the fielder's throat.

Remember, good field placing is about putting your men where the ball is likely to go. Sometimes that does mean following the ball for an over or two.

Declare early

Sporting declarations have all but gone from Test cricket. In club cricket, if you have the option to declare, use it.

Hitting as many as you can is a very "professional" thing to do, in that it is trying to ensure zero chance of defeat before trying to win. That's fine if your mortgage is on the line, but not if you are trying to have a good game of cricket as well as win.

It's every club captain's job to do everything in his power to prevent the snore draw.

Read the tea leaves, do some maths and work out how early you can declare when batting first and still win the gam, ideally in the last over. It's much more often than you think.

Play for your average

There is a breed of club player who is vilified for selfish batting. He scores too slowly because he has one gear. He his hard to get out but also has no way to rotate the strike. The middle order want to punch him in the face in frustration.

This guy is also a gem.

He will get you out of a hole when the team collapse. He will see off the best bowlers and - like the slogger who comes in at 7 - he will have days where it works and days where it doesn't work. Either way, it's a role that suits him so accept it.

Work on small ways to help him - like strike rotation - and let him get on with it. The middle order know he will sometimes mess it up but also will be grateful when the opposition best fast bowler is knackered from his blocking.

Bowl both sides of the wicket

"If you bowl one side of the wicket you can bowl to a field" we all say.

That's sort of true, but length is far more important than line. A wide long hop or long half volley - even with a 7-2 field - can still be put away. A good length ball on leg stump remains as hard to hit as a good length ball outside off.

So, if you are not a brilliant bowler, focus on hitting the right length and let line look after itself.

It does mean you needs more of a split field, but so what? If you bowl a length ball on leg stump, and the batsman spoons it to midwicket you have a wicket just as much as if he snicks it to third slip.

Yes, some of these tactics take confidence, and will sometimes fail, but not often. Besides, it's better than sleepwalking through a game stuck to orthodox plans that are just not working.

Let me know how you go!

I'll cut to the chase; there is a simple change to your bowling action that is a big hitter in fault correction.

Straighten your run up.

You see, when it comes to technique, so much that goes wrong can be traced back to an earlier point. That's why batting coaches focus on the grip and stance first, and it's why your bowling coach should look at your run up before he starts with the "business end" of the action.

Of course, a straighter run up will not fix everything, and there are exceptions to the rule. That said, there is plenty that can be done without ever worrying about 6 months of corrective drills and rebuilding your action.

So, spinner or seamer, Here are some of the things a straighter run up can correct:

Better accuracy

"Balance at the crease" is a coaches way of saying "helps you bowl straight".

When you run straight you tend to move through your action straight. If you approach at an angle, your weight is desperate to continue on that angle (say, towards leg slip).

To correct this, your body naturally adjusts and you end up "falling away"; the term used when your head leans to the side to allow your arm to come through straight.

When this happens it is much harder to bowl straight.

By running straighter, you make it easy to bowl straight. Your head can go over your front leg and you can get your wrist behind the ball. Your action becomes repeatable and so does your line.

More speed

I'll let you into a little coaching secret; a lot of pace - and turn for spinners - is generated by your hips. The more powerfully you can drive your hip through as you bowl, the more energy you can put into kph or rpm.

How does the run up help with this?

Many bowler's have an issue of being too "closed off". This is where the front leg crosses over past the back leg. This stops you from driving your hip through because your front leg has, literally, closed off the path for your hip. The result; you bowl with less pace.

And it's much more common in bowlers with off centre run ups because your weight is moving towards leg slip. Straightening up your run straightens your momentum. Your feet can get into the right place for more speed or rip.

Exceptions to the rule

Of course, so far we have only spoken in generalisations. There are many specific exceptions. There are bowlers with curved run ups who bowl with pace and accuracy who sit alongside straight run up bowlers with neither.

So the first question to ask is this: do I have an issue with pace or accuracy?

If you bowl at a good lick and can hit your lines well with a curved run up, you should probably keep it. It actually helps with swing and spin bowling sometimes.

If you feel you need to make a change, a straighter run up is very often the answer you are seeking.

image credits: brianac37. Gordon Anderson

Has your coach ever said something to you that you don't quite get?

Don't you feel like you are missing out because you can't decode it?

You are not alone.

Cricket is full of crazy terms and - thanks to better coach education - the number of these terms is increasing every season. It's easy for a coach to use words that don't resonate with you and leave you confused. Naturally, a good coach will pick up on this and adapt her language, but if your coach is an average communicator you have to do the decoding.

So, to help you make sense of "coachspeak", here is a glossary that goes beyond the well established terms and into the new stuff you might here when you are at nets.

• Areas. Line and length combined, usually used to describe a spell. "The bowler hit good areas in his first 5 overs".
• Backloading or baseball shot. A new type of shot taken from baseball where you shift weight from back to front foot and attempt to strike the ball.
• Block or hit. A description of a batting style where the batsman either defends the ball or tries to hit it for a boundary. There is no effort at rotating the strike.
• Blocked off. A general term to mean one part of the body is preventing smooth movement of another body part or the bat. For bowlers this usual means the front leg blocks off the hip. For batsmen the front leg can block off the bat swing in a drive.
• Channel. Line, particularly referring to the line on or just outside the off stump.
• Curtain Railing. When batting, a poor position of your bat for a defensive shot, too far to the leg side. You attempt to adjust last minute by moving your hands sideways. This usually causes an edge.
• Dropzone. An area on the field close to the striking batsman that is undefended by a fielder, allowing the batter to play a defensive shot and score a single.
• Falling away. A fault in your bowling action that causes the head to be outside the line of your body. This can cause injury and reduce accuracy.
• Falling over. A fault in your batting technique when attempting to front foot drive straight on on side. Your head is too far to the off side cause you to be off balance (or sometimes literally fall over) and making your foot position obstruct the swing of your bat. See: Blocked off
• Filthy. A very wide or short ball, or a batsman playing a shot across the line to a straight ball.
• Flaw. An error in technique that reduces performance.
• Hard hands. 1. A batting method where you try to hit the ball firmly in defence. This can be a technical flaw or a tactical attempt to Rotate the strike. 2. Attempting a catch by moving your hands towards the ball rather than letting the ball hit your hands in a relaxed way. The opposite is soft hands.
• Hit on the up. Hitting the ball when the bat is on the upswing in the follow through of the shot, usually a drive to a ball that is not full enough. It carries a risk but has most success on true pitches with little lateral movement
• Hitting under the eyes. See Play late
• Middle practice. Practice that is undertaken on a cricket field rather than in nets. It is designed to provide more realistic match style practice.
• Nick off. Edge the ball to wicketkeeper or slip.
• Non-negotiable. A basic technical point that applies in all but the most extreme circumstances.
• Play late. The process of hitting the ball when batting as late as possible, sometimes called Hitting under the eyes
• Play properly. An appeal to bat by hitting the ball straight in the traditionally accept manner, rather than try to hit across the line.
• Ready position. A stationary pose when fielding, wicketkeeping and batting where your knees and hips are flexed to prepare for quick movement.
• Red inker. When not out a batsman is said to have a Red inker. Often this is associated with defensive batting, or selfish batting that does not account for the match situation.
• Rotate the strike. The batter's ability to hit the ball and score a single or two regularly, particularly against good bowling that is usually defended.
• Soft hands. See Hard hands
• Squared up. When you attempt to play a shot while batting and your balance is incorrect, your hip and back leg can come through to bring you face on the to bowler.
• Uppish. A shot played that does not go on the ground, but also remains low at about knee or shin height.
• Weight shift. The process of moving your centre of gravity, usually forwards. For bowlers this happens between the back foot landing and release of the ball, for batsman this happens in every shot and is particularly noted in front foot driving.

Have you got more terms you want to define, or you know ones that are not listed here? Post in the comments or email me!

Let me ask you something; how much better a bowler would you be if you could hit a perfect line and length?

It's a challenge that takes a lifetime to master, and a road that is littered with distractions. Yet the simplicity is appealing: Put the ball on the spot, hit the seam again and again and watch the wickets tumble.

You don't need to be quick. You don't need to rip it square. You don't need to swing it round corners or even have a clever mystery variation. Those things are nice, but accuracy... accuracy is within reaching distance.

It's so tantalisingly close that you can almost taste the success it will bring.

Yet, so few achieve what should be simple.

How do you break through the accuracy barrier and take your game up a level?

Here is some advice.

Become obsessed with process

Modern coaching uses terms like "processes" to break the shackles of outdated methods. We used to use technique as the beginning, middle and end of bowling. It was striving for perfect technique that created bowlers with perfect accuracy.

That is certainly true, but we also know now that techniques vary. Technique is an important part of the bowling process that also includes other factors. Take the example of Lasith Malinga. The Sri Lankan has a bowling technique that should be super inconsistent. Yet he can bowl that death yorker for 12 balls in a row if he likes. He has a process.

And that's what you need too.

That starts with your bowling technique. Does your technique give you the best chance of bowling with accuracy? Do you find that you action can vary between balls?

Video yourself bowling both in nets and in games, especially towards the end of a match or session where fatigue can influence your movement through the crease. Watch to see what stays the same, decide what changes as you get more tired or stressed.

When you can see an area of weakness, strive to improve it.

This is not about wrist or head position or any other particular technical point per se. It's more about seeing what works in your technique, and what goes wrong when you fire it down the leg side. For example:

• If you notice your head falling to the off side at the end of the game, you might need better fitness (both core strength and endurance)
• If there is variation in your arm position as you release the ball, work backwards through each step of your action and decide where it breaks down, then work on it with chaining drills.
• If you bowl poorly under pressure situations, start developing methods to become better and handling those pressure moments.

You get the idea: Spot the issue (technical, fitness, or psychological), design a drill or training plan to overcome that method and work on it with single-minded obsession.

Remember the basics

Of course, all this takes some effort and no small amount of skill and knowledge. Luckily, during this process you can do something a lot simpler and that is almost always effective: basic target bowling.

Target bowling is useful because it is the purest form of deliberate practice: You can set it up quickly, get instant feedback and track your improvements over time. PitchVision even does this for you, but you can use a pen and paper or track it in your notes app on the iPad.

So, set up some targets, mark your pitch and bowl like a crazy person until it starts to click and your percentages shoot up. The more you do it, regardless of any other factor, the more accurate you will get. You learn where to look, you learn how bowling a good ball feels, you learn how to stay focused in a long spell. If you do it enough you develop bowling stamina.

Like all practice methods there are limits - you don't learn how to bowl under pressure, and you can't correct technical issues - but overall it works so well I would be amazed by any bowler who didn't use it.

Combine your target bowling with your new obsession with process and you have a bowler, over time, who can reach insane levels of accuracy.

Cricket is simple when you put it like that isn't it?

image credit: mushu2011

Steffan Jones bowled a yorker or two in his time and he wants to stem the flood away from bowling them. Here is how to take out those toes.

Why is the yorker going out of the game?

Maybe you have been told that by trying to bowl the yorker you are likely to either bowl a full toss or a half volley.These days those balls will disappear into the stands either over long-on or ramped over the keeper. The batters have got stronger and the bats have got bigger so the margin of error has decreased. Bowling a yorker is a risky business.

But you know what?

A true yorker still remains a ball you can't hit for six.

It makes me sad that very few are willing to bowl one. Instead you bowl a slower ball bumper that just opens up the whole field and is asked to get smacked. That's a cop out. You haven't practised the art of bowling yorkers. Anything else doesn't work as well. I was speaking to Azhar Mahmood last week, and he said that after the last few years of bowling his "back of the hand slower ball" he only bowled it twice this year because he knew batters were expecting it.

You know what you can't do much about even when you know it's coming?

A good yorker.

Yorker first policy

When we talk about variations, you must build a foundation of death bowling skills based around bowling a perfect yorker first. Build the bricks of the house first before worrying about putting fancy curtains in.

Speaking of which, I suggest if you can't hit a natural top of off length then practicing bowling at the death is a step too far. SO think about where you are in your development first.

That said, what is the plan for getting to yorker perfection?

The right action helps: Slightly slingy and a skiddy pace. It's also good if you are stocky in build and average height. It's more difficult to bowl a yorker as a tall bowler due to a smaller margin of error as a result of trajectory.

These traits make it easier, but with practice you can get good whatever your genetics. One of the problems I see today is exactly that; not enough practice for all kinds of reasons:

• Time restraints at net practice.
• Batters don't like getting their hoof blown off so won’t face bowlers bowling yorkers.
• Added workload to an already over bowled bowler.
• Needs to be practised indoor in the winter. Adding impact stresses on the joints and short run ups.
• A long learning curve: You have to bowl thousands of yorkers to lock in the muscle memory.

A lot of this can be solved with a simple conversation with the coach and batsmen. If you can hit a length then bowl half the session for the needs of the batter then say, "Now you help me, I'm practising death bowling". Get at least an over in every session.

At the top of your run

So you have permission to go for your death bowling. What do you do next?

"The body learns technique in the values of 85%-92.5% of your maximum effort" Anatoli Bondarchuk

Practice the skill as close to match pace as possible without adding extra workload and stress on the body. Half hearted at this point is waste. There's absolutely no point in practising off a short/walk through run up.

But effort doesn't mean all out speed.

To me, nailing the exact spot was more important than bowling it quickly. I truly believe an 80mph Yorker is far more effective than an 85mph half volley. Focus on the skill execution as opposed to the effort of the skill.

Has the advent of the speed gun at live games hindered bowling yorkers?

So now with the speed gun out of your mind, where do you aim? It's important to understand everyone is different. I ran in and focused on the bottom of the off stump. Remember, bowling yorkers isn’t a "feel" thing - like hitting a length - it has to spot on. It’s more like darts. Where you look is individual. Wasim Akram, Shoiab Akhtar and Waqar Younis all looked at different points: Bottom, middle or top of off. The one constant was that they looked at one particular point: That's the key. Don’t be vague, be specific!

The take home point

• Yorkers are out of fashion but still devastating.
• Practice yorkers at the right intensity, even when others try to stop you.
• Get in a lot of repetitions. 5,000 to start.
• Find the effort to practice it, it takes a long time to get right and has a tiny margin of error.
• Find a way that works for you. Everyone is different.

It's worth the effort because bowlers win matches and death bowlers win trophies!

For more from former professional cricketer and current coach Steffan Jones, click here.

I watched a bowling session last week with Kevin Shine, the Lead Fast Bowling Coach for the ECB. The topic was one that was discussed recently by Steffan Jones: bowling yorkers.

English bowlers are rarely excellent at this, the last brilliant English International bowler was Darren Gough and his International career came to an end way back in 2006.

Coaching the Intention

Kevin built a coaching gadget which acts as a tunnel for the Yorker to pass through. He placed it 1.22 metres away from the middle stump and he asked an ex-first class bowler to bowl at it.

The intention was to bowl the ball through the tunnel. The tunnel was adjustable in length to increase the difficultly (intention) as the bowlers competence and results improved.

The intention was clear. Get the ball through the tunnel. Simple.

At the same time, Shine asked a Performance Analyst to video the bowler’s action in high speed camera mode. The bowler initially bowled the ball into length under instruction and then the intention shifted to the "yorker tunnel". We could then compare the bowling actions for the 2 deliveries.

So what was different on the yorker delivery?

1. The length of the delivery stride increased
2. The previous point helped the bowler to lower his release height.
3. This had a positive impact upon the (flatter) trajectory of the ball.

Intention drill results

These are all great adaptations of the body - and for the bowling action - that work well when trying to hit the elusive yorker. But more importantly, did the bowler get better? Did the bowler get the ball through the tunnel?

No he didn't. Far from it!

He only hit the tunnel once in 20 balls, bowled lots of length balls and 3 beamers. He would have been taken off in a game by the umpire.

So, 'Coach the intention; not the action' theory doesn't work then?

Interestingly, what I have described here is the last 10 minutes of the session.

Rewind to the start

The previous 30 minutes was spent giving excellent data and research undertaken around the topic of yorkers by Shine and his ECB team. This research has informed the technical interventions and practices that we as coaches can choose to use. The detailed information was delivered to the group, including the bowler.

The bowler then bowled with all of this information in his head.

Consciously or sub-consciously, he was trying all those things at once and not getting anywhere near the target. His performance was significantly compromised. Now, we must remember that the session had a coach education theme and not a player development one; yet it got me thinking.

How many times we as coaches complicate and obstruct player development rather than unlock potential through intention based coaching?

The knowledge ultimately needs to be with the coach. The coach can then use the knowledge and data to set up appropriate intentions and to know what to look for.

A bowlers body will self-organise to find a solution (in this case a longer delivery stride, lower arm position, faster run up) if we set the right intentions and then coach in an implicit fashion.

Participant feedback

Some of the participants went away from the session saying "that's interesting data".

Some left thinking "I'm not having that! It’s too generic and the bowler got worse."

I went away thinking "That was great, I'm going to use that; just in a different order".

Have you got any examples of "intention based" coaching that has worked for you? Let me know.

For a full size version of this poster, click here.

Every team has one.

The staunch one. The guy who says bowlers should always bowl at batsmen in nets. It more realistic and anyway, nets are more for batsman than for bowlers.

This is frustrating. You know how it goes. The batter who is timid in the middle feels like KP in the safety of the net. There are wild swings, switch hits and all manner of unreal shots. You know they would never be played in a match.

Your practice is wasted.

Worse; there is nothing you can do about it while the staunch one looms over you telling you to pitch it up and give the batsman a chance to work on driving.

And besides, you want to give your team some batting practice too. It's not like you are totally selfish.

Do you fight hard against the staunch one to get time to bowl at a target, or do you give up an resign yourself to being a bowling machine?

In fact, you can keep everyone happy quite easily with a simple trick.

It's called warming up.

The bowling warm up space

Everyone knows that bowlers need to warm up. Even the old school guy does a few arm circles and says he needs to "get loose" after his first couple of balls are shockers.

So, use this to your advantage.

Get the coach or captain to agree to a bowling warm up area. Nobody can disagree with this because no batsman wants to waste net time on slow, inaccurate bowling.

The ideal space is a net - without a batsman of course - where you can target bowl and track your accuracy for a bit. Make it look good by doing some warm up exercises between balls. It's just about the perfect excuse to have 20 minutes bowling away from that disgusting slogger.

If you can't find a spare net, any space big enough for 22 yards plus run up will do.

If it's early in the session and all the bowlers are warming up then this is a great chance for batsmen to work on technical things with some throwdowns to each other. They do need technical work, right?

Don't avoid the batsman forever

Of course, we are not looking to keep away from batsmen the whole session. This is because you have to bowl at batsmen in games. Target practice is great for technical work and getting "overs in the legs" but it's terrible for tactical and mental skills.

(In fact, many bowlers subtly change even technique under the pressure of a batsman so it's good for technique to put a guy in there too.)

So, after you have done your warm up get into the net and start bowling to the batsman. It's good for your game and it's doing your duty to develop the batsman.

Keep it as mindful as you can: Define what you are doing, consider keeping score and keep tracking your accuracy and pace.

If you feel the need, and have an understanding coach, sneak back into the warm up area to hit a few more targets. The batsman will be OK with it if you come back more accurate.

Using this method, you can both bowl at a batsman and still get your target practice in too. Everyone wins.

One of the most common pieces of advice from top bowling coaches is to learn to "brace the front leg". But that's a technical term, and it's not obvious to everyone what it means, or how to do it. So, here are more details about how and why you brace the front leg to bowl fast.

Why brace the front leg?

Two words: Pole vault.

A pole vaulter generates enough power and energy to get over a bar five or six metres in the air. Much higher than a high jumper. The difference is the pole, which is used to brace against the ground after a run up, put energy through the pole and lever the athlete high in the air.

You don't have a pole and you don't need to be flipped, but you do have a leg and you need to get energy into a ball. The straighter you leg, the longer your lever and the more power into the ball. So, by keeping your front leg straight when it lands, you are creating energy. It looks a bit like this:

Why a braced front leg is an advantage

The idea is becoming more popular in coaching - thanks in no small part to Ian Pont - but it's still not standard practice. That means many players learn how to bowl without ever being told to brace the front leg for improved pace with no loss of accuracy.

In fact, there are even professional bowlers who don't brace the front leg. Even very quick bowlers, who often use other methods such as upper body power to bowl fast.

However, chances are you will bowl faster whatever you method if you brace. This is a huge advantage for you can get an extra yard of pace if you can learn the skill well. You may or may not become a 150kph bowler just by bracing, but you will certainly get quicker and you won't lose accuracy. This is true, even if you have an established action with a bent front knee.

How to brace the front leg when bowling

The first step is to check if you knee bends when your front foot lands. If it does, you need to do some work. So, get yourself on video from the side and see for yourself.

If you do need to brace, this skill is difficult to learn. It's especially tough if your action is well set. It feels "wrong" when you try it. It may even feel like you are going to damage your knee by locking it. This feeling won't last long if you persevere. Don't let it put you off.

Take some time to try bracing your front leg (also called the front foot block) from standing still. You don't even need to bowl a ball. Get a feel for that braced leg in a still position first. It takes more time for some than others but everyone gets it. Then you can try walking it through slowly and building it up to a jog then full speed. You can see the full drill progression here.

For some, this will come easily and you will see an uptick in speed. For others it takes more time but with effort you can get there and add speed whatever your starting point.

Your hips are the powerhouse of the bowling action: You have leapt to the crease, landed with a braced front leg and there is a surge of energy heading up your body like a pole vaulter's pole sends them over the bar.

But wait.

Before the energy can get into the ball to sear it down, it needs to get through your body. This is where your hips snap through with perfect timing. Coaches like Ian Pont call it hip drive. Every single super-fast bowler has it because it works.

Your hips are the first place to look if you are not bowling fast, and if you want to bowl faster. So, how do you learn to drive your hips effectively? It's a complex movement that involves the thighs, glutes, core and lats. It takes coordination and power.

The good news is that hip drive is a learned skill. You don't need to do naturally to be able to do it. If your hips are holding you back you can do some simple work to develop the ability to snap your hips.

Ultimate exercise for fast bowlers

To me that sounds very much like an old Russian exercise recently popularised in the west; the kettlebell swing.

Using this unusually shaped weight ("cannonball with a handle") you can perform a swing exercise that teaches you - guess what - a hip snap that looks remarkable like a fast bowler's hip drive. It teaches you the coordination you need to use all that ground force energy to put into the ball.

It also improves your overall power in just two 12 minute sessions a week. And the conditioning effect is perfect for when you want to build your endurance for longer spells, or you want to come back for a second spell just as fast as the first.

If you have no gym access and limited funds to buy kit, an investment in a kettlebell is the perfect answer.

What's not to love about that?

Get your hands on a kettlebell

There are different weights to choose from, and the best way to know is to try. Here is a simple guideline if you are unsure:

• Advanced men: 24kg
• Men: 16kg
• Advanced women: 12kg
• Women: 8kg

Younger athletes halve the recommended weights for adults (depending on age, size and strength).

You can get started right away and hone your technique as you go. Start with two times a week training two sets of 10 swings.

You can build this up gradually over time, adding more sets and reps as you get stronger and better at the movement. If you want to get more snap in your bowling, you can also do a couple of sets of 10-20 swings before you bowl. It's best to do this as close as possible to bowling time, on match day morning at least.

If you are using it for conditioning you will have more reps with a shorter rest time between sets. You are trying to get gassed (and leaving time to recover before a game). If you are using it for power, you have less sets and reps, a longer recovery time and your focus is on developing the hip snap power you can take to a game.

Be it power, conditioning or both, you can expect noticeable results within four weeks. Most people notice within two weeks. Your bowling will have more snap, you will become leaner and more focused as your fitness improves. Batsmen will be more hurried and you'll get the fast bowler's swagger of confidence.

There is no one way to use the swing to your advantage, as it depends on your needs and resources, but assuming you are a fast bowler playing cricket on Saturdays, your routine could look like this:

• Monday: Conditioning circuit: Kettlebell swings, push ups, chin ups, lunges and pallof press.
• Tuesday: Light mobility, no kettlebells
• Wednesday: Training, warm up with two sets of 10 swings
• Thursday: Power training: Five sets of 10 swings focusing on a powerful hip snap.
• Friday: Conditioning circuit: Kettlebell swings, push ups, chin ups, lunges and pallof press.
• Saturday: Morning power: three sets of 10 swings.
• Sunday: Rest and recovery

Proper weightlifters spend years honing their technique in exercises like cleans and snatches. The kettlebell has a big advantage: you have much less to learn to get similar results. You can use this as a low cost, simple and effective tool in your fast bowling toolbox.

Get a couple hidden somewhere at your ground and in your gym and watch your hips become super-explosive in less than a month.

Sam Lavery has been talking about changes in the modern game, and how to apply them at club, school and academy level.

Lately, I've spent some time talking to first-class coaches about T20 cricket. I'm aware that what we see at the pinnacle of our sport will filter down. I find it gives me a direction of my own, as to how my cricketers at Portsmouth Grammar School can develop skills that are current in our ever-evolving game.

One of the main points I picked up on was the ever-increasing emphasis put on bowlers to be Twenty20 match winners.

We all know bowlers win Tests, but in a world where Chris Gayle, Brendan McCullum and David Warner appear to be the prize assets of any franchise, is the real value in the guys at the other end, who restrict these players to good innings rather than great ones? And if T20 is as much about the bowlers as the batters, do we attribute our coaching in the right manner or proportion?

I wonder, are we investing the same amount of time in differentiating between leg stump yorkers and 5th stump yorkers, and then developing an association to appropriate field placings and scenarios. Or do we focus more on swinging hard, setting a base and driving the hips to clear the ropes, or adjusting the head and feet position, to perfect that ramp over short fine leg?

After all those things are more fun aren't they?

If you look at the stats from the 2015 Big Bash, the value of an effective bowling unit is clear. Six of the top 10 Big Bash bowlers made the final.

Where once individual bowlers would make significant impacts on a game - with Murali single handedly winning game after game in the early days of T20 - now the ability of a group of bowlers to collectively work together and squeeze a batting line up holds more value. Having an ability to repetitively execute one or 2 skills to an extremely high standard is harder than facing a bowler who delivers the ball at 90mph. Perhaps we may be seeing another victory for nurture over nature.

Andrew Tye's ability to execute an off stump yorker, with the support of Brad Hogg's mystery and Yasir Arafat's craft and skill, are a perfect example of how quality skills, combined with good decision making and an understanding of roles, are mighty effective.

So how does this transfer into what we do as coaches?

Address the balance of your time and focus, and ask ourselves a few questions.

• Are we spending adequate time preparing your bowlers for T20 success?
• Are we building a team of bowlers, or are we just working with individuals?
• Do all the bowler's know their roles and how they can be applied?
• Is the captain able to associate a specific situation or scenario, with the skills they have at their disposal?

Not a week full of facts I’m afraid. What do you think are the answers in your situation?

Here's a treat for you: a coaching session filmed at Millfield School with Level 3 Coach, Dan Helesfay.

Dan seamlessly combines the old and new technical coaching with data gathered using PitchVision video and ball tracking technology. He helps a young cricketer with the technical issues of shoulder rotation and "falling away" and makes some improvements in accuracy and speed.

It's rare we get to see top coaches at work, but thanks to the guys at Millfield, we can see how easy it is to integrate the traditional with the new to create effective coaching.

Here's the video:

If you can't see it, click here.

As always, your feedback and questions are welcome: What do you think about using technology to coach technique?