West of Scotland indoor nets, skills and drills
With rain around we retired to the indoor school for a two lane net session. Here are a few thoughts and lessons:
- When it rains, fewer people come. This is fine because we only have a small space. However, this year, people are letting me know rather than not being around. Excellent.
- My detailed outdoor to indoor plan was basically chucked in the bin. This is not a problem. We adapted well and I quickly asked a few guys to turn up an hour later to stagger start times to stop it being too busy. This worked surprisingly well. Will try again with this plan.
- Some first team players cancelled when they realised they were indoors. However, helpfully, five first team guys decided to have a net before the main session. This left me with just one player who needed a focused session and a bunch of guys who were there to have a hit. I don't mind letting nets drift a little to standard batting and bowling in these situations. The guys at the session are not looking to do more than have a social run out. They don't respond as well to my nudging towards deliberate practice.
- Nevertheless, we still got quite a bit of tracking done on PitchVision, especially the bowlers. So, I am slowly pushing the entire culture at the club that way, even the third team guys. Sneaky!
My final thought was a little "aha!" moment: I was chatting to a second team batsman who was bemoaning the lack of a chance to bat outdoors.
Then I realised...
The indoor school gives a huge advantage. We have trained three times a week since January and now it's a bit wet in the preseason, we can continue to train. As long as we use the sessions well, we will be way ahead of everyone else who has trained less and could have an enforced break in training for a few weeks due to training.
If it's a wet spring, we have no excuses for a poor start. It's all on us!