It's a horrible feeling when you have been in the field for a long time: Your legs get heavy and all you want to do is get off the pitch, get in the shower and have a pint or a cuppa.

Usually this is the time you need to be most switched on.

So it pays to use a couple of tricks to keep the fatigue away in the dying overs.

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Jack Nicklaus is renowned for saying that the more he practiced, the luckier he got. It's a great philosophy but it ignores an important factor.

You don't have to do things perfectly to win.

Some cricketers are natural runners, especially between the wickets. We can't all be as swift as Collingwood or Symonds though so we need a simple cheat to get our 22 yard dash up to speed.

That's where your arms come in.

Many coaches encourage the use of technique training to make this process as efficient as possible but in fact there is a simpler trick (especially for club players with little time to train):

Have you ever been in 'the zone' when playing cricket?

If you have you know how good it feels and how much better your performance is, but you may not know that you can get there at will with the right training and tactics.

What is the zone?

The zone is that time when you are just playing. You are completely engrossed in your performance, unaware of anything else. You have no worries or distractions and you are not even making conscious decisions.

Club cricketers don't practice much. There is not the culture, enthusiasm or time to do so regularly. How do club players get around this?

Cricketers, more than any sportsman, enjoy their food. After all, the game is built around lunch and tea. So it's no surprise that most players will be carrying a little extra weight after the excesses of Christmas.

Don't panic, you can lose those pounds before the summer arrives.

Let's not fool ourselves. England lost the Ashes because the Australians were better.

But have Australia been better for so long because of their club cricket system: A system that feeds through the grades to State and Test level in a clear path?

Is there a cultural barrier to this in the UK that will forever hold the English back?

Playing under a good captain is a wonderful way to play cricket. Good captains rarely, if ever, let players, games or seasons drift away into boredom. You always get a game, the matches are as close as can be and you win more often than not. And if you are a club captain yourself, you have no doubt asked yourself how you can be this good yourself.

The 6 Keys to Great Club Captaincy