Improve reactions

Just Re my earlier posts about eye speed i finally found the blurb in my textbook again. Rather than typing out the whole thing, i'll just put in the important parts. Also this is more relevant to facing fastish bowlers than spinners.

Their is 3 stages to hitting a ball, the ball has to be seen, player then reacts, then play the shot correctly.
The ball will take (depending on how fast the bowler is) about 0.7-0.8 (+ or - )of a second to reach you, in that 0.7+ of a second, it takes about 0.30+ of a second to see and react to the ball and its trajectory. This gives you approx 0.4 of a second to set your feet and play the shot. If your reaction time is too slow you have less time to play the shot and can have the worlds best technique, but completely miss the ball because you are to slow.

It is quite hard to improve your physical reaction time i.e. the time it takes for you to plant your feet and play the shot because you are what you inherit genetically. But, if you improve your time in which you sight the ball and react to it then you have longer to physically play the shot. It is quite simple really to improve your sighting of the ball and reaction to it. As the bowler is running in, don't just look at the ball, look at the very middle of it, this helps cut out the other signals your senses are receiving.

Pretty much to sum that whole extract up, Concentration is the key to timing, look at the very centre of ball, nothing else while the bowler is running in. This reduces your sight and reaction time, giving you more time to physically react, so you can duck, pull or unfurl that cover drive.
I would like to note though, practice is more important than anything, you only get out what you put in.


Edited by NZ_Fast - 05 September 2007 at 5:46am

Visual Imagination can help as well, I remember reading somewhere that when you imagine yourself facing the bowler, then picture yourself playing a certain stroke against a certain delivery, the brain sends down messages to the arm muscles and it increases the reaction time, the brain basically tricks itself. Doing weights etc will help you develop the fast twich fibres in those muscles as well.

Practising in the nets will help as well, focusing on technique and nothing else.

oo ryt thanks for that tyke 

i googled it and i couldn't really find anything about improving eye speed, just how to improve "reading speed" lol!!!

thanks anyway

Originally posted by NZ_Fast Interestingly enough, revising for exams today i came across a piece in my textbook today that a lot of timing in cricket is simply eye speed. You can have awesome technique but if your not picking up the ball early enough then you're going to be playing late or early. It didn't suggest any exersizes to help with eye speed, only saying that eye speed can be improved....i'd suggest google to look for anything.

What ? in your course book, it was written ?. What are you studying ?

lol yep i do mate, thanks tho :)

Hey, is there any one who would know how to improve your reactions or timing ?


basically it is for my batting i wouldnt say my timing is great, is there any things you can do to imrpove your reactions, for example i got told to play a bit more tennis becuase it dont only improve your hand eye co-odination but improves your timming and reactions  would you say that is true?

and is there any other stuff you can do, to improve your reactions and timing ?





thankyou