Improve your Cricket Coaching, with great drills, techniques & training plans

Forget the cricketing controversy - Off spin bowling!

To celebrate the fine game that is cricket, and get away from this week's cricketing controversy we celebrate Muttiah Muralitharan, the incredible Sri Lankan spin bowler, with Sportplan's off-spin bowling session, designed to improve your players' control of the red cherry.

Cricket has been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past few days. It has been a torrid week with match fixing allegations against four Pakistani players and Pietersen's ill advised four letter outburst on Twitter announcing his exclusion from the English national side.

However, when all those around you are losing their heads now would be a good time to cite some Rudyard Kipling and remember that cricket is still a glorious game, steeped in history, that has featured some of the finest sporting characters such as William Gilbert Grace right up to the modern great Murali - the man who effectively reinvented spin bowling and famously bowled his way in the history books, taking his 800th wicket earlier this year with his last ever right-arm off spin bowl.

This week's session is highly flexible and can be used as an introduction to the off-spin bowl or with more experienced players as a way of continuing to improve their technique. The other benefit of this spinning special is that it can be used with large groups, making sure everyone is involved, having fun and learning.

Off-spin is the most popular method of spin in cricket. An off-break delivery turns from the off side to the leg side when bowled at a right-handed batsman. The spin itself is generated by the first and second fingers of the right hand. The more revolutions you can put on the ball, the better chance you have of getting creating a difficult bounce for the opposition batsman.

For rip-roaring spin bowling - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Skills games session - Learn through playing!

In this week's games focussed Sportplan session we work on your players' ball concentration, throwing and batting accuracy.

Over the past few weeks we've been focussing a lot on technique which is why this week we thought your players might appreciate a more light-hearted session, where they can learn through play. 

Training should not just be an excuse for a quick knock about game of cricket, you should always be looking to better your players and this too is our philosophy at Sportplan.

In this week's session as your players enjoy playing the conditioned games they will continue to hone their skills, working on tracking the ball through the air, even with a lot of distractions, and throwing and batting with real purpose and intent.

To get the ball rolling (excuse the pun) we work on high catching in a pairs running drill, this will get the blood pumping and ensure your players hands are nice and soft. After this warm-up we then start the first of the three games - crossed wires. In this drill players must throw the ball to their partner stood a few meters opposite them, sounds simple, well it's not so easy when there's three other balls flying around!

Want to see what the other two games are in this week's session are as well as seeing what Sportplan can bring to your trainings? Log in now to see the full session - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Rainy day cricket session ideas - Rain or shine it's cricket time!

As the British summer is starting to show signs of fading now might be the time to go back indoors and practice in the dry.

To help you train out of the rain we've created this indoor session to work on bowling accuracy and batting proficiency through use of a batting net drills and fun conditioned games.

If the sun is shining though don't despair - you can use this fun session with your players indoors or out, with players of all abilities!

We start this week with a rebound bowling drill where players must aim to get the ball bouncing at a specific height on the wall. After this we test your players' ambidextrous throwing ability, ideally your players' should be able to throw with both hands but is that really the case?

We then set up a batting challenge - each net has a different type of bowler - can you players cope with a spin bowl as well as they can a fast bowl?

To keep the boredom at bay we decided to finish on a high with a Serve and Pull team game of cricket where each batter get 5 balls to try and use their best pull shots to score as many points as possible against the fielding side who are trying their best to get them out.

Try this rainy days session - regardless of the weather, rain or shine, it'll put a smile on your players' faces!

It's cricket time! - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.