Cricket Drills - Batting

Batting is an essential part of cricket. Everyone will have their opportunities to shine and score fours and sixes. All batters need to to able to hit the ball, not just a random hit, but hit it with sufficient power, so the ball can go out of bounds and the team can score more points. Batting can last for a long time, once you are there, you stay until you are out.

The following are some awesome drills you can do to practise. But my main form of batting drills would be to just play a game with your friends and try and improve it, but if that's impossible, then check out these awesome, incredibly simple, and super powerful drills to master the art of batting.

Drop Feed Drive

This is one of the simplest drills to increase your batting skill. It is a one-on-one drill with a batter and a feeder (can be anyone). The feeder drops the ball directly in front of the batsman. The feeder must be off the site of the batter, so the batter can bat the ball comfortably. The batter steps forward and his aim is to hit the ball on its second bounce and drive the ball through the ground and through the target area, which can simply be a pair of cones.

Bobble Feed

This is to be done in pairs and within a net, although you can preform it in any environment. The net is just so the ball doesn't escape the field and you don't need like an unlimited number of balls. To preform this drill, each net contains a batter and a feeder and there are target cones set up. The feeder bobble feeds the ball and aims towards the batter, who tries to steer the ball through the target cones.

As a coach, you should aim to make all of your players better in field. To do so, you should see and note down the progress of your batter. You can make the target area tighter so the batter can practise more on narrow spaces.

Cricket Rounders

Cricket rounders is a classic, preformed by everyone, from professional cricketers to junior school children. Cricket rounders are like a 'normal' match but have their differences as well. You set up 2 teams and assign one team's role as batters and other team as fielders. The fielder throws the ball and the batter has to hit the ball. 

There can be 3 outcomes of this, one, a fielder catches the ball before it hits the ground and the batter is out, so the next batter bats. The second outcome is that the ball hits the floor and the fielders pick it up and hit the batter with it before the batter reaches the safe area, if this happens then the batter is out as well. The last outcome is that the batter reaches the safe area before being caught by the ball, or have the ball being caught.

If the last one is the case, then the batter must return and go to the end of the batters queue. While the batter is returning it is possible for him to get eliminated by getting hit with the ball. If the batter is successful, then the batting team gets a point. The batter doesn't necessarily have to stay in the safe area and wait for the next batter to bat, he could just get into the safe area and out straight away, which yields 3 points. But the batter in the safe area cannot chose to stay and leave when a fielder is bowling. This is a penalty and the batter gets eliminated. There is also a limit in the safe area, which can be adjusted to your liking.

At  the end, record the points for the batting team and then switch the teams so that the previous batting team is now the fielding tea and vice-versa. In the end, the team that gets the most points wins. This is a fun activity and you can make many modifications with it, such as having a maximum of one batter in the safe area.