Indoor Cricket Net Sessions - Week 2.

If you are a Cricket coach and are planning on running a series of Indoor Cricket Net Session, you will need to work out a schedule, prior to starting the first week. It is always a daunting task, when planning for the first time but, if you prepare well, then success will not be far behind.

A good coach always plans ahead.

As lead coach it is down to you to formulate the session theme for each week. Take on board the other coaches views and aim to set the sessions, for the standard of players attending. I wrote, in an earlier article, about how to plan a Cricket Net Session. Here, i intend to fill in some of the gaps and add some substance to each session. Follow all 12 sessions and you should have an enjoyable 12 weeks plan.

By giving each week a theme allows the coaching team to see the plan for developing the players, quite early into the program.

We gave the 12 sessions a theme for each week, you can see this in the earlier hub.

Week Two - Catching.

Allow 15 to 25 mins for a warm up. Try to make it Cricket related and specific to the drills you would be following later in the session.

This week we are starting with a game of Hand Hockey. Split the group into two teams of 7 or 8. Give one team a set of bibs to make it easier to identify each team member. Place one set of Spring retun stumps at either end of the court and mark an exclusion zone, with cones, approximately 5 Metres away. The idea of this game is to roll the ball to each other and then have a shy at the stumps that you are attacking. Possession changes when a mis-field occurs or if the ball is intercepted. For this drill we use a red tennis ball in place of a Cricket Ball. Although when we go outside the Tennis ball is replaced with a cricket ball.

We then go into some dynamic stretches. Jogging around the perimeter of the hall with side steps, jogging backwards, touch floor, running and jumping or anything that gets the body moving whilst completing some stretches.

We then Split the group into 3 teams. One coach, for each team, throws a red tennis ball, under arm, at waist height,for the player opposite, to attempt to catch. This is repeated 4 or 5 times per team member per group. We the repeat this scenario with a variation of catches, making them increasingly more difficult.

• High catches
• Low catches
• Short catches. The player has to come to meet the ball.
• Long Catch. The player has to run away from you, towards the ball but, has to look over his shoulder to keep their eye on the ball.
• Slip Catches, We use a Katchet, side ways on for this. A player or coach throws the ball hard at the Katchet. Another (brave) person holds the Katchet attempting to deflect the ball towards the keeper and slips.
• Catches to the right or left. We have a thick mat out for this to enable players to dive. We urge players to dive towards the ball, with their chest towards the ground. This stops the ball from being knocked out of the hands upon impact with the ground.

You can either have the whole group attempting the same type of catches at the same time or have different stations with a different catch at each.

Aim to finish with a Catching competition to add some pressure.

If time allows, we might finish this session with a 20 minute game of Kwik Cricket, to blow some of the cobwebs away.

Remember to keep it FUN.