Easter Holidays Cricket: Junior Coaching Session 3 (7th April 2013)

Week 1 saw us look at basic fielding, and week 2 saw us look at basic batting so naturally, basic bowling will be the focus of session 3 (the final session before the kids go back to school and the senior season starts).

First of all, when looking at bowling there is a lot involved in the action. The run up, delivery stride, getting side on to generate the power and the delivery of the ball itself (making sure bowling arm is straight on release) and the follow through. 

As that is a lot for them to take in, in one hour long session, we decided to focus on how to hold the ball for each type of bowling (seam, off spin and leg spin) and what the delivery stride in all of these would look like off a two/three step run up. 

This way they are getting a taste of all types of bowling action and can learn and understand what the types of bowling actions should look like and how holding the ball in a certain way can affect what it does after it bounces.

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We started with seam bowling as this is most common bowling action to use. A seam bowler holds the ball between his index and middle finger spread over the seam with the seam upright (see picture). When the children had done this we showed them the delivery stride and explained to them that they needed to focus on where our bowling arm went (i.e. straight up by the head and the shoulder in a circular motion) They then did ten repetitions each within pairs to get used to the technique. We brought them in for questions on how they found out and to clarify they understood it all.
 After we had done what we needed to do on pace bowling, we moved on to looking at off spin and leg spin and how the two bowling actions differ and how the differences changes the effect of the ball. First of all we looked at off spin. Off spin is when a bowler spins the ball into a right handed batsmen (if he is a right handed bowler, so it spins away from the off side). This type of spin bowling, the bowler would be looking to pitch the ball around the off stump. The correct way to hold the ball for bowling the standard off spin delivery can be seen in the picture (left) as the fingers rolling down the seam during release are what cause the ball to rotate and subsequently spin off the pitch. The children again paired up, and tried the grip and bowled (10x each) to one and other to see if they could get the desired turn off the ground, but more importantly to see if they could do and understand the grip of the ball as the grip would allow them to practice it in their own time.


Leg spin is a type of spin bowling that requires getting revolutions on the ball to cause it to turn away from the leg side (leg stump line and length for turn towards off stump). The way the ball is held pre-delivery will determine how much spin and how far the ball will spin when it hits the pitch. On the right is what the ball should look like in the hand, again the fingers are responsible for the speed and number of revolutions the ball will get. Like what was done with the off spin action, the children paired up and again had ten attempts at using the grip and seeing how if felt to bowl using that specific bowling action.

Like at the end of every session, a game was played relating to the session. As three actions were looked at the game was split into three parts. Cones would be put out for ideal line and length and points would be scored for pitching within these cones with more points being scored for hitting the stumps. This game is simple to run and gets the competitive spirit out of the performers as they want to show me they can do it but also want to beat their mates.

With this being the last session of the Easter holidays and the introduction to each aspect of the game I am feeling confident in my ability to deliver structured cricket sessions during the course of the season whilst still being able to improve and listen to suggestions from others as to how I can improve as a coach, as that it is something I am always looking to do.