I made this video with my dad when the weather was a bit better! I am standing facing a net, my dad is feeding the balls to me between ankle and knee high in the “V”, so I can practice getting my weight onto my front foot and through the ball.

Hope you like it!

The Pull

The pull is a very tempting drill in this case, a full toss in a great slogging area, but the main point of this drill is to watch the ball and roll your wrists right at the last moment making the ball go down into the floor.

Feeders if the batsman is able to smack the ball everywhere speed up the feed rushing him in the shot which practises more control in the shot.

The On-Drive

The on-drive is the hardest drill for me because in real time games I like to whip the ball through midwicket by just flicking my wrists when the ball is bowled onto my legs and that is definitely not the aim of this drill.

With the same feed as the forward defence but more on the legs of the batsman and the main aim of this drill is keep your wrists going through the line of the ball which is a very repeated phrase on this website it is true but it is so important.

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The cover-drive

This is another great drill I got from the England lions, the main objective is to watch the ball and practise the technique in the shot and not to hit it as hard as you can.

The cover drive is a great shot when is comes off but to practise it well the feed needs to be precisely in the right place so feeders the ball needs to be the same height and speed as the forward defence but wider so you can unleash your arms and get your wrists through the line of the ball.

The Forward Drive

This is the same drill as before; low and straight full tosses, with the same aim to watch middle and time the ball to perfection.

The feed needs to be the same as the forward defence but this time you really unleash your arms bringing your wrists right through the ball with power but timing.

How to play cricket and practice like the professionals

I saw some good practice drills when I went to see the England A v South Africa game. One batting drill I picked up on straight away was with the batsman getting underarm throws from a partner at different speeds with the batter facing a net. He just played his shot one after the other trying to get the technique right.

I went out the next day to try this with my dad, he was throwing the balls and I was playing them back toward him in a mid off to mid on arc.

Here are some pictures of me practicing forward defence like this.

This is me setting up to receive the ball

This is the moment I played the forward defence shot

This is the ball travelling away from me along the ground, so hopefully I did something right!

I must have played about 100 forward defence shots in a very short space of time. My dad took these still shots from a video of the session, so you will get to see that soon.

I would really love to know what you think, so please leave a comment, and look out for the other drills we tried out coming up on the website in the next few days

Here is the video