Firstly, sorry if there is a topic like this

Just thought it would be interested to see how other players view their time in the nets. Whats your take on net practice?

Is it a time to experiment with new shots?
To practice shots your already accomplished at to refine technique?
Try shots/techniques you would never attempt in a match - like a reverse sweep for many people?
To have fun generally?
To focus on one particular shot untill you can play it consistantly?

Now no doubt one could say all of the above but in reality i've seen many players view their time in the nets differently and have different goals they want to achieve from a session. How do you treat your net time?

The above is from a strictly batting point of view.

recently I've been working specifically on my cover drive and straight drive because i hit across the line.

But me and my mates compete for wickets as we're all all-rounders. We play whoever gets the most wickets wins. So the idea is to hit some shots but value your wicket. It's a very good system.

[EDIT - continuation]

The Batsmen is obviously there to play shots and practice but at the same time, not be stupid and get out. We count our wickets and every one is important. We all bat the same amount of time. We find this system encourages the batsmen to play sensibly and value their wicket, but also encourage the bowlers to try harder, practising variation amongst wicket taking balls.

Realistically catchable edges are given out, LBWs are decided by appealing to the other bowlers, who then act as an umpire and bowled..well is bowled  Great fun and fantastic practice

I practice leaving the ball as much as I can in the nets.

oh but my techniques are fine :)

I suggest most people playing at a fairly high level have techniques that are fine and maybe the flaw in his technique is ball leaving so that is why he practices it. I also believe that there is no perfect technique, look at all  the modern batsman, all have flaws. It's about producing runs, I have seen many batsman that look very pretty but do not produce runs. I think the key to working on your game is videoing some of your nets, people can explain things all they want but until you see it for yourself you will rarley improve.

I think people have a funny attitude about leaving balls in the nets though.  Bowlers think you are a pussy and others think you are a waste of a 15 minute batting time! My team mates are so used to me hitting anything absolutely necessary now, they know if they want me to play a shot they will have to bowl accurately.  At the end of the day we all benefit from it.

I just practiced glides, flicks and drop and run shots off faster men, and when they bowled up to me used to throw the kitchen sink at it. Most of them sails over the boundry straight, when they are up to me. Short balls I just try to defend my head being smashed

When spinners are on (horror of horror only three of them in a squad of 40 for the university excluding myself) down the track, inside out over extra cover was my favorite shot. Unfortunately one of them was a Derek Underwood type left arm spinner (6' 3" in height) who was firing it in. Others also did not know how to flight it (i was the only one who threw it up over the eye line of batsmen). SO did not have much opportunities to play it.

Batting in nets was not fun for me, because every fast bowler targeted me to test their bouncers, but never tested their yorkers on me

I went to this club training session to see if i felt like joining them. Every bowler bowled a bouncer. Thats all they did. They only wanted to hit the batsman. Needless to say i thought they were &"("! and left.