Top 5 Christmas Gifts For Your Mad Cricketer
Christmas for a cricketer is one of the best times of the year!
Australia’s favourite summer pastime mixed in with the holiday season enables your cricket-mad person a host of hours of fun outside, in front of the TV or anywhere in between at Christmas time.
Here at the Century Cricket Group, we’ve put together the ultimate Christmas list for a cricket-mad person in case you’re struggling for inspo when it comes to buying them a Christmas gift.
Ball tracking technology - $29.95/month
This is some of the coolest tech out in the cricket world and very popular with coaches, elite cricket teams and players. The Fulltrack AI app enables players to video their whole session in the nets, automatically cuts up the good bits and throws away the dead time between balls! What this leaves you with is short clips of your ball to use for all sorts of things; think coaching analysis, put it up on your socials or better yet, ball tracking!
Each ball is able to be analysed with the hawkeye type ball tracking by seeing the swing difference between the ball’s true path and where it was actually swung/spun. It allows you to group your session together and spits out data on bowling accuracy and % of balls in certain lengths to give you the most well-rounded information from your training session!
Purchase a monthly subscription or pay for 12-months up front. The best bit is that all of this can be done on your phone and doesn’t require big expensive cameras. All you need is a stand and your phone with the app up and away you go!
Now this is cool! For those keen young cricketers who really want to learn the art of playing the swinging ball, this is for you!
Let’s face it, playing swing bowling is hard and most of the time, unless you can spare $70 - $150 for a brand new ball every session, and have someone come in off the long run to bowl it to you, you will struggle to practise it! That’s where the SWINGA comes in.
For the cost of $19.95 you will get a ball that not only swings for just 10 overs the first time you use it, but you’ll actually be able to use it over and over again without losing its ability to swing!
They’ve got heaps of different bundles and also a backyard cricket ball that replaces the manky old taped up tennis ball. For this one, get out of your comfort zone! For the cost of 20 bucks, you’ll be able to start developing better skills against the swinging ball, which most players dread playing. I can see them moving higher up the order now after a holiday stint of using this in the nets. Look out bowlers after the Christmas break!
If you’re looking for something that can replace a tired, weary old shoulder, or you might even be looking to avoid the dreaded dodgy shoulder joint that comes with the countless hours of throwing balls to your mad keen cricketer in the nets! Well, look no further!
The Bazooka Soft Toss is a great tool for players to be able to train on their own. This machine does it all and at the click of a button. It has the ability to hold a tray of balls and automatically toss a ball into the air so players can work on their sweep shots, using their feet to spin, top hand drives and lofting the ball over the fields.
All you have to do is charge up the battery, turn on the switch and you won't see them until it’s flat. Hours of entertainment! Luckily enough too, we’ve actually got a discount code for this one. Use CCG15 for 15% off your purchase!
Bat Sensor
$200.00 + app subscription
https://www.kookaburrasport.com.au/cricket/accessories/training-aids/stancebeam
Imagine being able to get visual and actual feedback immediately after hitting a shot. That’s exactly what Stancebeam does! Attach the sensor to your bat, start up the app and away you go.
Measure impact speed, efficiency, power output, plus a wagon wheel that details where you’ve played your shots during your session. The best part about it is that you’re also able to measure it against historical data to track and monitor your improvement, or measure your performance from previous sessions.
The Stancebeam includes inbuilt and live cloud storage so you can review each session even when you're not connected.
This one is for the bowlers!
Glen McGrath, Josh Hazlewood, Jimmy Anderson, Zaheer Khan and many others all made a name for themselves at the top level. But what do they have in common?
Consistency!
Now your cricket-mad person will be able to hone their skills all summer long with the Aero Bowling Target. Take it anywhere! Pick it up, place it on the top of off and see how many times your bowler can nail that target.
This tool is quite handy because rather than placing cones on the floor to hit a consistent length, the best way to develop consistency is being able to get the ball as close as you can to the top of off stump. Depending on your height, pace and ability to extract bounce when bowling, each bowler’s length will be completely different so rather than placing the old $1 or 20c piece on the ground to hit, change the target and aim to get the ball through the top of off stump and you’ll see their consistency go through the roof!
This is a pretty cost effective tool and a great little present that gets them out of the house, off the computers/tablets/phones and into the nets working on their bowling!
So there you have it! 5 of the most effective cricket gifts we think would be worth your while. We’ve also tried to make sure there's an array of products at different price points so there’s something for everyone!
Get in quick, and have your presents sorted for your keen cricketer and make sure they spend quality time outside working on their game with any one of these options.
Merry Christmas!