Top ten Bating Tips

1. Watch the ball: - Watch the ball the whole way from the hand of the bowler to wherever it ends up in the field. 

2. Keep your top hand in control: - To practice this simple take the bottom hand off the bat and player a variety of shots to a ball in a stocking hanging off a fixed structure (such as a tree or clothesline).  Make sure you try all shots, including the pull and the cut shots.

3. Play your own game: - if you score runs quickly that you still need to play your shots and if you traditionally score runs by nudging the ball around for an hour – do so. Someone who is a nudger of the ball and is coming out needing over 8 runs an over needs to adapt – but instead of slogging  the bowler you make a huge effort to ensure you score at least one off each delivery by pushing the singles. Knowing your role and your strengths and weaknesses is a strong key to becoming the best cricketer you can be.

 4. Be patient: - All batsmen need to be patient. This doesn’t mean not being aggressive, it doesn’t mean not playing your shots and it certainly doesn’t mean going into your shell.  It means, making sure your wait for the right ball to play your scoring shots.  If a bowler balls you six perfect deliveries – he bowled you six perfect deliveries.  Playing a shot or more importantly the wrong shot to these deliveries means you will lose your wicket and not be able to affect the game any further.  This is why you need to be patient.  Remember: there are a variety of things a batsmen can do to put a bowler off his rhythm and even a good ball can be pushed around for a single.  Eventually, the bowler will need to do something different or bowl a bad ball – this is when you need to play your shots and capitalize on the situation.

5. Don’t go too hard to early: - Learning how to work your way in to an innings is one of the most important areas of batting technique.  The rule, don’t go to hard too early is as important as playing your own game.  While you are not seeing the ball as well as you can, not sure what the pitch is doing and not quite freely moving your feet, you need to be careful not to go too hard at the ball.  At this stage of your innings trying to force shots or play the more difficult punches or aggressive shots can cause you to mis-time or push too hard and cause either a catch or a miss-hit to occur. 

6. Don’t over analyze: - When you play a good shot, move on and re-focus, when you play a bad shot, move on and re-focus. whilst you are out in the middle in the heat of the battle is not the time to be thinking about technique or how to improve.  You need to let your reflexes and training take over to allow you to really focus on each delivery and the job at hand.  Many batsmen also have the habit of over analyzing the game situation.  A tip to overcome this is simply to break down the task into simple attainable tasks.  Remember: If you’ve put the work in at training, it will eventually show out in the middle, whilst you are out in the middle.

7. Relax: - Relax, have fun and enjoy yourself.  If you start to get stressed, scared or concerned about the game situation you will tense up and your muscles will not work as effectively as they should.  This may mean you will go too hard at a delivery or even play a shot too late.  Make sure you take the time to take a couple of deep breaths and learn how to control the adrenalin rush\.

8. Light feet: – keep yourself balance and relaxed: -A bit similar to relaxing is ensuring you focus on keep your feet moving.  Fatigue , stress, fear, or even dwindling concentration results in you placing more weight on your feet or shifting your weight backwards (albeit very slightly), as a result it takes you longer to move and longer to play your shots.  The easiest way to attempt to stay light on your feet is to do a little jig, skip or move your body weight forward and backwards before each delivery (make sure you are still before the bowler releases the ball however).

9. Run between the wickets hard: - Effective running between the wickets will result in extra runs you didn’t think you would get better rotation of the strike, more pressure on the fielding team and less pressure on you.  The Australian team has become masters of the quick single and turning ones into twos and twos into threes.  The result is more runs, more strike rotation and an easier run chase or a larger total.

Tip: The easiest way to improve your running is too learn how to get low, slide your bat and push off  Also, do not wait until you have turned to decide whether there is a second or third run, decide as you are running, turn push off and then re-evaluate.  Loud and early calling is the key to ensuring your partner knows what is going on.

10. Watch the ball – yes, it is that important: -I said it at number one but after years of coaching and playing I have realized that even some top level players do not watch the ball all that carefully.  Watching the ball closely gives you every chance to let your reflexes and training work in your favor.  It will also allow for you to better counter-act the natural variations the game throws your way (Swing, seem, spin, pitch variations and even weather variations).

These top ten tips are not really a compensation  for good technique but rather are a simple list of tips to ensure your technique will transfer from the practice nets to the centre wicket.  They are also not the be all and end all of rules; they may work for some and not others.  However, I feel all these tips are important for a player to work into their game and their habits.