This weekend, i had the pleasure of meeting, England wicket keeping legend, Jack Russell. He was the guest coach for the Oxfordshire County Junior Wicket keepers, training session. 4 hours of quality coaching was split over two sessions. The first was aimed at young keepers and the focus was, standing up to slow bowling'. The aim of the 2 hours was to encourage the young keepers to focus on the Cricket ball, rather than be distracted by the batsmen wafting his bat. He talked about dragging the gloves on the ground to keep the keepers head still for longer. The keeper, when in the set position, was asked to extend their arms and then drag the back towards the body. This was a simple trick, that seemed to work and would quickly become their 'trigger' movement. The second session was for the older boys and worked on standing back to pace bowling. These lads, in contrast, were encouraged to move a split second earlier than usual. Jack had a wonderful contraption, that was placed where the batsman would stand, and fired cricket balls from a bowling machine towards it. Sometimes it would divert a fraction off the board, replicating a batsmans edge, forcing the keeper to move or dive to their right. The point of moving slightly earlier was to make them think about covering more ground so, being able to take more catches. The thought process of Jack Russell was always to expect the edge, everything else was a secondary thought. A wonderful entertaining and enlightning coaching session, one i hope to replicate with our district and club keepers.
