Red Devil wrote:Thanks for the advice SP - I will take note.
I had a breakthrough with my son this week - Thursday i was working from home so i switched off the PC at 5.30isha nd we spent some time playing cricket in the garden. I asked him to only hit the ball on the off-side and it seemed to work pretty well after a bit of work on stance and bat positioning. He drilled quite a few through the off-side, however his first instinct is still the hoick to leg, but there was definite promise - also I think he was quite excited once he realised he could hit the ball pretty far playing straight or on the off-side as well.
Tomorrow morning I'll see if I can get the other kids doing the same
I dont know how useful this is, but the only comparable thing I learnt as an adult was to play golf, and it amazed me how much a core set of fundamentals controls 99% of your output. I played for two years without really becoming much better, I was shooting 110 plus rounds and went to see a coach at the end because I had went as far as I could. I had tweaked my arms, was convinced my swing plane was wrong, convinced I wasnt turning the hip on the downswing enough, went through a range of drills to improve phantom problems..... the coach watched me hit 30 balls and suggested that far from the complex things being wrong, the three most basic elements of my game were wrong, that being the grip of the club, where I stood in relation of the ball, and the fact that on the downswing I moved my body and head and lost sight of the ball. These were the three key fundamentals that I had "glossed over", and without them the rest of my game could have been as good as Tiger Woods but I would never improve. A few months later and scores were in the mid 90's to late 80's consistently, and the only difference was the contact of the ball was by then consistent.
I guess the point is, dont teach your son anything other than to watch the ball onto his bat, to stand correctly, to hold the bat properly. Everything else is nothing until he can do that, if he is serious and wants to become better, those three fundamentals are key, and you can ignore anything until he gets them right. In fact my old golf coach told me to forget everything that might effect the shot (such as wind, rain) as it would only effect my shot if I hit it perfectly.
If your son can watch the ball and contact the ball with good timing, then I think everything else falls into place naturally. I always used to think that cricket batting was about seeing the ball and judging the shot, but I came to realise that its natural, instinctive. You dont see a ball from 11 yards away after its bowled and think "half volley, cover drive", its actually thinking "contact the ball" and you react almost automatically to select the shot.
