Cutting Edge Cricket

Cutting Edge Cricket has brought together unrivalled advice on playing and coaching cricket from 38 of Australia’s most legendary players and coaches. Covering every aspect of cricket play you will learn and appreciate how the greatest players in Australia’s cricket history reached the pinnacle of their game.

From reading Cutting Edge Cricket you will be able to provide ways and means of enhancing your team’s daily training and match play. Cutting Edge Cricket not only contains the best drills for batting, bowling, fielding and wicketkeeping. Inside you will also find best practice strategies for captains and coaches to follow in leading and managing a team to success.

The illustrious list of contributors includes the following:

·         Australian Captains - Greg Chappell, Mark Taylor, Belinda Clark and Bob Simpson.

·         National Coaches – John Buchanan, Tim Nielsen and Tom Moody (Sri Lanka)

·         Players -  Justin Langer (batsman), Merv Hughes (fast bowler), Ashley Mallett (spin bowler) and Ian Healy (wicketkeeper)

·         Sport Scientists – Professors Bruce Abernethy and Bruce Elliott

Each time you open this book you’ll learn something new and useful for your next practice or match. Soak up the stories and benefit from the wisdom of the great players and coaches from this most successful cricket nation.

Frank Pyke has been involved in elite sport development as a sport scientist and administrator in Australia for more than 30 years. He played cricket at first-grade district level in Western Australia, developed and supervised fast bowler Dennis Lillee’s rehabilitation program after a back injury that threatened his career, and coordinated the fitness programs for the Australian team in preparation for World Series Cricket during the late 1970s. Frank has also been the editor of all three editions of the textbooks for the national coaching accreditation program in Australia in 1980, 1991 and 2001.

Following an academic career in several Australian universities, Frank became the inaugural executive director of the Victorian Institute of Sport in Melbourne in 1990. He retired from full-time work in 2006 and is currently involved in teaching and facilitating courses in sport development, leadership and management in universities and the sport industry. He holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Western Australia and a PhD in exercise physiology and human performance from Indiana University.

Ken Davis has played and coached cricket at the first-grade level in both Western Australia and Victoria for most of his life. Ken is a trained physical educator who understands the needs of elite, youth and club cricketers. He also has a background in sport psychology, which he draws on in his coverage of mental skills and preparation in this book. He taught human movement and physical education at Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria, for more than 20 years, and he has worked for Cricket Victoria since 2001.

Ken has a master’s degree from the University of Western Australia; his thesis was titled Fast Bowling in Cricket. He also has a PhD in sport psychology from Florida State University. Ken is currently working as a sport science consultant and is a member of the Cricket Coaches Association. He won the Coach of the Year award in 2005 through the Victorian Sports Awards.