Cricket Drills - Bowling

Bowling is key. I mean, if it wasn't for the bowlers, then the batters would always get a win. As a bowler it is your role to make sure you can get the batter out. There are ways to do this, including getting caught, LBW, run out, hit wicket, amongst many others. Here, we've put together a few drills to take you from nothing to everything. Before you actually start bowling the ball, you need to know how to hold the cricket ball, you can check out the different hand grips by clicking here.

Hitting a Target

A rather simple yet effective start to bowling is 'hitting a target'. This is set with at least 3 people, a wicket keeper, a fielder and as many bowlers as you want. You will also need to have wickets and some kind of a reference point. This could be a tape, rope, or anything which can be quickly referenced to. The set up is also surprisingly simple.

Have the wicket keeper behind the wickets and get a bowler to bowl the first ball. The fielder uses the reference point to find out if the bowler threw the ball at a good line and a good length. After the bowler is done, then its the next bowler's turn and so on. You could make this more of a fun activity by giving points to the bowlers for getting a good line or length. You could even give them a time limit each and have a reward for the winner.

Double Target Practice

This is a modification to the target practice. As the name suggests, there are 2 targets instead of one. This is to have and improve your ability to adjust your line and length. To set this up, you place 2 targets, which could be 2 stomps. 

The bowler then makes a throw and aims to hit one of the targets, then the bowler throws another ball straight away, but this time aims at the second target. The bowler keeps on changing the target to be hit. You could make this more challenging by changing the distance between the targets after some time. This will keep the drill more challenging and the bowler will actually improve more this way.