Voluntary and involuntary trigger movements are really important. Walking top players need to initiate off the side that they prefer in the “preparation phase”. Rhythmical from the balls of the feet on the left hand side.
Conceptuals from the balls of the feet on the right hand side.
Now players like to have a rhythm to their movements and time these trigger movements, generally they would end them at point of release for conceptuals and just after for rhythmicals is what I’ve witnessed over the years rather than move and stop to try and move again (Something that Walking bottom athletes can do)
Watch Mitchell Marsh batting, what foot does he initiate from and notice against spin bowling how he triggers still and most probably doesn’t realise he does.
Watxh yourself and others va spin do they trigger without realising?
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Cricket Coaching Company based in west london we have produced over 400 county youths, 21 international youths with 6 x ecb level 4 coaches guiding our programmes. Fusing Biomechanics and research into how the eye and brain work and affect our movements and ability to bowl and bat, frameworks for bowlers of all types and builds
This is Tiger Woods talking to another pro called Tom, Tiger often talks about his FEEL being important to him with his putting, but this video is particularly interesting as you shall see and hear they use a different hand/arm to get their feel for the putt.
In Vancouver, coach Matthew Brown made an amazing technical change for putting for left motor shoulder golfers and the feel was unreal for them, do you understand how you golf in terms of movement, grip, swing, feel?
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Hip Shoulder Separation is often very misunderstood, people get assessed for movement ranges when staying still, but through 'movement' we have different degrees of which we want to hip shoulder separate.
If you were to look at someone from a Birds eye view you would notice this more, we look at the angle between the line between the hips and the line between the shoulders.
Low Mobile Point athletes use less Hip shoulder separation and this does not mean they produce less force.
If you watch people in the follow through watch the line between the hips and shoulders and the hips spin out like a door opening with the shoulders.
For spinners I see a lot of them stop with the belt buckle facing the batter, the coach will say complete the action but not realise they need to learn to rotate the hips the entire way around to "complete" to your technical model.
High Mobile Point athletes separate more between the hips and shoulders but they will separate more as the bowling arm is behind the body OR in the follow through.
With say the pull shot, If I cue finish with the hands over the opposite shoulder my profile with a Right Motor Shoulder can finish and hold with the hands over the left shoulder (as a right handed batter), with left shoulder profiles they tend to rebound back. We did co-ordination tests in Vancouver with our softball players and showed them the differences then they showed us their batting videos and it correlated but do we as coaches notice these things?
Here are examples on the video of: Pat Cummins, Jofra Archer Dale Steyn and Shoaib Akhtar, what differences or similarities do you notice with the bowlers?
Batting coaching myths:
1. Take your hands back in the backlift. At high speeds this wastes time, you have pace on the ball so need to get the bat to the ball, watch his hands go up and to the off side instead.
2. Extend your arms when you pull. If you have the batspeed of Brendon mccullum then sure, if you consider an ice skater spinning they bring body parts closer to them to rotate quicker, using this in the pull shot va high speed makes sense, you can keep the arms bent and have a fraction more time to get to the ball
What else do you notice that you didn’t expect and then have a look at Ricky Ponting pulling the ball, why was he so good at the shot?
20/02/2026
Tomorrow we welcome England wicket keeping lead Simon Guy for two wicket keeping masterclasses for our players we have only two spaces left for the sessions
10/02/2026
Throwing Grips make a huge difference, in training with Middlesex Schools Cricket we have seen a lot of players throw the ball with the ball spinning and rotating sideways. A really common reason is the placement of the thumb on the ball, notice this image of jemimah rodrigues the index and middle fingers are lets say above the ball and the thumb is around 4 o clock on a clock face rather than 6 o clock which from our experience tends to see people spin the ball like an off break rather than get backspin on the throw if the thumb is at 6 o clock to the thumb and middle finger. Throwing Velocity went up 4-7mph with the grip change.
When look at where the palm faces in the load of the throw and the angle of the Throwing elbow in the load, some like the arm straighter (Conceptual and Distal Motor skills) but also notice the direction the palm faces, some coaches say face it away from the target, some perpendicular, some towards the target, by the time the hips turn if it was perpendicular then the palm is square (faces) the target and doesnt need to rotate to get accuracy but people have preferences to pronate and supinate so what have you seen with your throwers?
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This is Alex Rodriguez talking about his batting swing at one point of his career, the interesting part of this is people assume you need a long preparation phase to create energy then a long follow through phase to transmit force into the ball and give you time to decelerate. We have spiral systems and Alex talks about shortening his follow through like Roger Federer who seems to be a left shoulder dominant tennis player and would not follow through too far beyond striking the ball, as a coach you are looking at the hips and shoulders, how much do they separate and bear in mind the hips might be continuously rotating when you compare them
Have you tried shortening the follow through and how does that feel to you?
02/12/2025
The importance of mindset in the batting approach with Ricky ponting
02/12/2025
This is Ricky ponting analysing a batters stance and their “dominant eye” (used to aim at static objects, the motor eye tracks moving objects)
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Micro adjustments of the stance can help keep the batter more balanced, you can tap the bat against the floor but need to bend with the knees rather than (walking bottom trait) from the hips (walking top trait) as this takes the head too far to the off side of your base (the feet)
We profile players to help them understand their motor preferences and how their brain and body want to move (generally for the professionals and internationals or high performers at the academy)
Batting stances should start with the head position and work their way down the body to create THEIR best alignment
26/11/2025
In Cricket we have rules when bowling that the arm should not EXTEND (straighten) by more than 15 Degrees from when the arm is level with the shoulder behind the upper body in the action to the release of the ball.
Some people are on social media calling people with bent arms chuckers (Throwers) and really don't quite get how this works, they can keep the arm bent through to release so long as it does not straighten.
Various academies and coaches will send bowlers across for me to look at and to be honest sharing a bit about what I look into might empower others to really take a closer look and support their bowlers.
There are two images attached -
1. The Arm from various angles
2. Gareth Batty bowling
Looking at 'Arm Carrying Angle Image' first in the top left image it shows you 'Hang Angle'. If you make a line from the shoulder to the elbow, then compare the angle of the wrist to the elbow the vast majority of people have the forearm hanging between 5-15 degrees away from the angle of the upper arm! This is where when you analyse an arm through the movement of bowling you look at the bone joints where I have marked blue circles in the left hand image of the three if they flexed the arm the hand and forearm would move upwards towards the person viewing the arm (forwards).
Ask a friend to take a photo of you standing with the arms extended and the palms facing forward
Then ask them to take a photo of you from the side of the body (90 Degrees around you) Depending on the next factor a lot of people will notice the arm looks straight! (There are two reasons why this might not be the case so bear with me)
Understanding that from one angle it looks bent, then another angle it can look straight you might then realise as the arm TURNS during the motion of bowling it can give you the illusion of throwing the ball but you are not!
Next we have Hyperextension - When straightening the arm the forearm can go beyond 180 degrees (Jasprit Bumrah) the extra degrees beyond straight are not considered in the 15 degrees which is quite an advantage.
The opposite is like Muralitharan whose arm would straighten to 180 degrees so when "extended" it still had the angle in the image.
Now Moving onto image 2 Gareth Batty bowling from side on we see when the arm is shoulder height behind him it is bent and around release it looks straight, now before you cry chucker, look from behind and you see he keeps it bent so hes not chucking the ball.
The angles at which you observe matter, 45 degrees around Mid on is a good angle but track the bending and straightening through the sides of the elbow joint and dont assume things check their arm what is their normal?
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