Ask any coach what separates a good bowler from a quick one and the answer is almost always the same: line and length. Pace gets attention, but it is putting the ball in the same place, over after over, that takes wickets and builds pressure.
The trouble is that line and length are hard to feel. From the end of your follow-through, a ball that pitched half a metre fuller than you meant looks exactly like the one you intended. A pitch map fixes that by showing you where every ball actually landed. This post explains how to read one, what its partner the arrival map adds, and how to turn both into something to work on.
What a pitch map shows
A pitch map is a top-down view of the pitch with a dot for every delivery, placed where the ball bounced. Two directions matter:
- Length runs down the pitch: how far from the batter's stumps the ball landed. A fuller ball lands closer to the batter; a shorter ball lands closer to the bowler.
- Line runs across the pitch: whether the ball landed in line with the stumps, outside off stump, or down the leg side.
Broadcasters shade the pitch into length bands to make the map readable at a glance. The names are standard across the game, even if the exact cut-offs vary with the bowler's pace and the surface. For a seam bowler, a common rough guide measured back from the batter's stumps is:
| Length | Roughly where it lands |
|---|---|
| Yorker | At or very near the batter's feet |
| Full | A couple of metres in front of the batter |
| Good length | The zone that makes the batter unsure whether to come forward or go back |
| Short of a length | Just back from a good length |
| Short | Well back down the pitch, rising towards the body |
Treat these as rough bands. A good length for a quick bowler on a bouncy pitch is shorter than for a medium pacer on a slow one, which is exactly why measuring your own is more useful than memorising someone else's.
What the arrival map adds
The pitch map tells you where the ball landed. The arrival map tells you where it went next: it shows where every delivery crossed the batting crease, seen from the batter's end, with the stumps drawn in.
Broadcasters sometimes call this a beehive, because a tight group of dots around off stump looks like one. It answers a different question from the pitch map:
- A ball can pitch on a perfect length and still arrive harmlessly over the top of the stumps if it bounced too much.
- A ball can pitch in line and still arrive missing leg if it was angled in.
Read together, the two maps tell you both halves of a delivery's story: where you put it, and what it did.
How to read your own maps
Look at the shape of the cloud of dots before you look at any single ball.
- A tight group in one length band means you are repeating your action. That is the goal.
- A long smear down the pitch means your length is drifting, often a sign of a release point that changes, or fatigue late in a spell.
- A group that drifts across the pitch means your line is wandering, often from the run-up or the angle of the front foot.
- Two separate groups usually mean two different deliveries, which is fine if you meant it (a stock ball and a slower ball) and a problem if you didn't.
Then compare the two maps. If your pitch map is tight but your arrival map is spread out, the problem is not where you land the ball but what it does after, which points at seam position, bounce, or angle rather than accuracy.
Turning the maps into training
A map is only useful if it changes what you do next. A few simple ways to use one:
- Set a target and measure against it. Put a marker on the pitch at your target length, bowl an over, and see how many dots land within a stride of it.
- Compare the start and end of a spell. If your last over sits noticeably fuller or shorter than your first, fitness is costing you accuracy.
- Check a change before you commit to it. A new run-up or an action tweak should make your group tighter. The map tells you honestly whether it did.
- Batters, use it too. A pitch map and arrival map of the balls you faced shows which lengths got you out or beat the bat, which is the ball you need to practise against.
Building pitch maps with Zoota
Drawing a pitch map by hand means someone standing at the batter's end with a clipboard, guessing where each ball landed. Zoota builds it for you from a phone recording.
Prop your phone up behind the bowler's arm with the whole pitch in frame and record your session. Zoota tracks every delivery and calibrates itself to the real pitch from the stumps, so each dot lands where the ball actually bounced, measured rather than eyeballed. For every session you get:
- A pitch map of where every ball landed, by line and length.
- An arrival map of where every ball crossed the batting crease.
- Breakdowns: length, line and shot tables for every over.
- Speed, swing and spin, and the release point and height of each delivery, measured from the same footage.
Batters get the same maps for the deliveries they faced, alongside auto-clipped highlights of their shots.
The short version
A pitch map shows where your deliveries landed: length down the pitch, line across it. An arrival map shows where they went next, as they crossed the batting crease. Look at the shape of the group, not single balls: tight means repeatable, smeared means your length or line is drifting. Measure against a target, compare the start and end of a spell, and use the maps to test changes to your action.
Zoota draws your pitch map and arrival map automatically, with speed, swing and spin for every ball, from a single phone recording. It's free to try on Android.
Sources
- MCC, Law 6: The pitch
- MCC, The Laws of Cricket