Despite the fact that most of our cricket grounds are sporting football posts, there’s still plenty of cricket to be had.

It is great to have Test cricket back on the agenda after a long break and despite the big hitting of Twenty20 cricket, Test cricket still can’t be beaten for entertainment for me due to it’s ebbs and flows and the genuine contest of skill and temperament between batsmen and bowler.

Australia’s earned a hard fought win against a resurgent West Indies to go one up in the series.  It was great to see a close contest played out over the full five days and from a coaching point I think it is worth taking a close look at two of Australia’s key performers in the Test.

Ricky Ponting bounced back to form after a forgettable series in Australia against India and in the IPL tournament, with a brilliant century.  Significantly his performance was built on a lot of hard work, prior to the tour, in the nets at the Brisbane based Centre of Excellence using a giant video screen to analyse and then fine tune his game for peak performance.

Stuart Clark’s Man of the Match performance was engineered with meticulous preparation and his relentless ability to execute the basic skills of his game under pressure. Champion players, such as Clark, have the ability to execute the basic skills consistently and well and there is no better role model for a fast bowler than Clark in terms of relentless excellence in delivering line and length and although perhaps not spectacular, the pressure brought about through his level of skills enables him to dismiss the world’s top batsmen time and time again.

Importantly in addition to his wonderful command of line and length, prior to the Test, Clark made a point of studying video tape of Glenn McGrath’s previous outstanding performances in tours to the West Indies which underscores the value of preparation and shows no matter how good you are you can always keep learning.

The IPL is reaching the final stages of competition and has well and truly put Twenty20 cricket on the map.  How Twenty20 will change cricket is yet to be seen, but it is clearly an exciting form of the game and is certainly here to stay! For those players who’d like to have some fun playing this exciting form of the game, Elite Cricket will be holding a Twenty20 tournament in January 2009 – details and entry forms will be posted on the website in the coming months.

Elite Cricket has our annual pre-season Specialist Fast and Spin Bowling and Wicketkeeping Academy programs running in July, August and September. I will be running the Wicketkeeping Academy and I’m very pleased to let you know former NSW spinner and current NSW coach David Freedman will be one of our spin coaches and Mark Cameron NSW Blues speedster will be coaching in our Fast Bowling program.  The event and enrolment details for these programs will be posted on the website shortly.

The cricket season will roll around quickly and keen cricketers should soon be thinking about and planning their preparation for the season ahead. With this in mind I have posted a new series of articles on the website to help you think a little more about your cricket and would suggest you take some time to read them leading up to the season.

Cheers

Mark