How Important Is Technique

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lower11

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I would like ppl's opinion on technique in batting. How important is to have a textbook technique. I personally dont have a textbook technique i am more of a 'hitter' of a ball rely on my hand eye coordination and reflexes more as i have never been taught. But now i am playing a high level of cricket and am struggling. Is it possible to change your technique to a more textbook one, espescially if you are relatively old and not a teenager anymore.

Thanks
 
I am a big fan of David's analysis here http://www.pitchvision.com/batting-plans#/ that said if you are struggling with a step up in standard then you do perhaps need to look at elements of what you are doing - note this isn't saying you need to go back to square one and spend all the Christmas holidays reading the MCC coaching manual from 1950 something.

So... next steps, what does 'struggling' look like? Is it the extra pace you are facing, lower run-rate, different role within the side, lack of 'bad' balls to put away? Once you have identified an area (or two) then try and think of what you can do to rectify / minimise the issue, is it limiting your shot options, working on developing an alternative method to a particular ball, whatever. As you are 'not a teenager anymore', then use that strength and experience to good effect and come up with a solution that works for you, whether that is something out of the textbook or not, remember the textbook is really only the othordox that works for most people most of the time and there are plenty of unorthordox batters out there scoring runs, even at test level. Best of luck.
 
My opinion - very much an amateur one - technique is crucial. Doesn't mean unorthodox is necessarily bad technique, far from it, but there is unorthodox and there is wrong. If you are doing things that are really wrong, it is surely going to count against you no matter how good your timing or strength or hand-eye co-ordination.

I also believe that is it perfectly possible to change and improve no matter how old you are. The only thing is that it may take more practice to make and ingrain a change.

Last season I improved my batting tremendously from watching youtube and putting in some dedicated practice.
 
Having a "perfect" template is handy, especially for coaches who are dealing with beginners.

That said, there are precious few technical things that are 100% right or wrong for everyone. I can't think of anything in fact.

Of course, some things work for some, and the exact same thing is total failure for another. There are also things which tend to work for most people and you can get an easy win by making a change.

So, technique matters, but it's your technique and not some external ideal of perfection.
 
lower11 said:
I would like ppl's opinion on technique in batting. How important is to have a textbook technique. I personally dont have a textbook technique i am more of a 'hitter' of a ball rely on my hand eye coordination and reflexes more as i have never been taught. But now i am playing a high level of cricket and am struggling. Is it possible to change your technique to a more textbook one, espescially if you are relatively old and not a teenager anymore.

Thanks
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What's the issue you're facing? Different issues are obviously resolved in different ways etc
 
micoach said:
Having a "perfect" template is handy, especially for coaches who are dealing with beginners.

That said, there are precious few technical things that are 100% right or wrong for everyone. I can't think of anything in fact.
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Surely, there is universal agreement that the ball should be watched all the way (or in reality, as far as is possible) onto the bat?
 
I think that what he means is, broad focus is where you watch the bowler when he is in his deliver stride. It may be hard to see where the ball is in his hand but you need a broad focus on his movements to get all the information you will need on where to use your narrow focus. This will be on the very small target area that you focus on, to effectively watch the ball as it leaves the bowlers hand.
 
It's interesting, looks like I am in the narrow focus group. The sport I am now heavily involved with (sore knees after bowling or over 5 or 6 hours in the field have finished my playing time) is Table Tennis. Every coach I have talked to, including Chinese coaches, stress how important it is that you should focus on the ball when it is being served, to pick up the spin and direction of the ball and to identify the techniques used by the server to disguise their serve. They believe by doing this you will pick up technique differences and make it easier to return the serve. So for me I will still continue to tell players I am coaching to watch the ball out of the bowlers hand. I think that if you do it habitually you will notice any alteration to the bowlers delivery style, whether that is at the bottom of their bowling circle, foot placement or out of their hand. I guess though that no matter what sort of focus you use, you need to develop a routine that you use to talk yourself through every ball. When you realise you aren't doing your routine every ball then you've lost concentration.
 
Neville Young said:
So for me I will still continue to tell players I am coaching to watch the ball out of the bowlers hand.
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I think any other proposition is insane.

I think one might relax / look elsewhere before the ball is released, as long as the eye catches the ball at release point.

As someone posted on the thread the other exception is that the ball is not cleanly tracked up to the bounce point and I don't think it is advisable to try to do so. Actually what happens is that the brain makes a forecast of where the ball will bounce, the eyes jump to that point in advance, then one tracks as well as possible from there.
 
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