Despite the fact that nets are a multifunctional tool for improving bowling skills, they are used poorly by bowlers.
The net is the Swiss Army knife of cricket training aids. Players who stick to just using the knife are ignoring the screwdriver, corkscrew and bottle opener at their cost. With the right drills nets develop technical, tactical and mental skills as a bowler.
So don’t waste net sessions. Use the right tool for the job.
1. Target practice
As you already know, there is nothing simpler, easier or more effective than good old target practice. Bowling well means bowling accurately and the way to improve your accuracy is by trying to hit the area on the pitch that you consider accurate. Not rocket surgery.
Without a batsman, place or draw a target on the point in the net you want to hit. Run up and bowl at the target. Repeat.
You can do this practice for any type of delivery:
- Hitting the top of off stump
- 4/5/6 stump line
- Back of a length to ‘hit the deck’
- Fuller to allow for swing
- Yorkers
- Bouncers
- Slower balls/variations
The golden rule is to practice your stock ball 80% of the time with variations making up the rest. In these days of Twenty20 you may almost consider the yorker as your stock ball. It will certainly make you a few quid
The more you bowl the better (although remember the fast bowling guidelines if you are a young pace bowler).
The size of the target can be varied but you should be looking to make it as small as possible to improve your accuracy. Start with a big area to hit and gradually reduce the size as your accuracy improves.
2. Double target practice
A variation on traditional target practice is to place two targets on the pitch instead of one. This is designed to improve your ability to adjust your line and length. Good bowlers are able to do this to set a batsman up, for example a bouncer followed by a yorker.
Your job in this practice is to bowl to hit one target then change length and hit the other consistently. This is much harder than hitting the same target over and over.
This practice is less useful for spinners who rely more on flight and turn while hitting the same area.
3. Play and leave game
This game brings the batsman back into play. It’s designed more to improve tactical awareness and mental strength in a specific way.
In this game your job is to make the batsman play (stats have shown that the more a batsman plays, the more likely he is to get out). The batsman is trying to leave as many balls as possible.
You bowl to a pair of batsmen in 6 ball overs per bowler. The batsmen get 4 runs for every leave and lose 4 runs if they get out. Pairs of batsmen compete against each other while the bowlers compete individually for the most economical overs.
You can do this in nets or as a middle practice with fielders.
It’s an effective practice because it forces you to focus on making the batsman play the ball, a very useful way of getting wickets.
4. Perfect over
This is a more exciting version of target practice, designed less for technical and more for tactical development.
Perform the drill by planning out an over beforehand, then trying to bowl it. The idea is to think about how you are going to set a batsman up in a set of six balls, then see how well you can do it (you don’t need a batsman).
5. Gate bowling
This is an outcome-based drill for working on technique. The drill lets you practice spinning or swinging the ball.
Set it up by putting ‘gates’ on the pitch and trying to get the ball to swing or spin through them. The exact location will vary depending on how much movement you get and which way the ball moves.
6. Middle practice
Finally, you can get out of the nets altogether and work on your tactical and mental game against a batsman in the middle.
The limitation of bowling in nets is lost when you practice in the middle, but it’s not a place to work on technique, so forget target practice and start thinking about how you respond to and deal with pressure.
Some bowlers use friendly or low importance games for middle practice, but you can also set it up in your practice sessions if you have something specific to work on (like bowling at the death).
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