Cricket nets are practice nets used by batsmen and bowlers to warm up and/or improve their cricketing techniques. Cricket nets consist of a cricket pitch (natural or artificial) which is enclosed by cricket nets on either side, to the rear and optionally the roof. The bowling end of the net is left open. Cricket nets are the cricket equivalent of baseball's batting cages, though fundamentally different, as baseball cages provide complete ball containment, whereas cricket nets do not.

Cricket nets serve to stop the ball travelling across a field when the batsman plays a shot - saving time and eliminating the need for fielders. They also negate the need for a wicket keeper should ball travel past the bat. They allow greater intensity of training, specifically when multiple lane cricket nets are used. Cricket nets allow solitary batting practise when used with a bowling machine.

Cricket nets are fundamental to cricket practise and are used at every level of cricket. Professional cricket establishments are likely to have over 10 lanes of nets, and have the capacity to practise indoors and outdoor. Cricket nets are also very prevalent in educational establishments; including schools, colleges and universities. They are particularly desirable in these fields as they allow safe and efficient training with a high volume of pupils where there are significant constraints on time. Completing the spectrum is their use as garden cricket nets. Cricket nets are very common site in the gardens of keen cricketers and are probably rightfully considered highly important to the development of young cricket players.

Ian Ronald Bell MBE (born 11 April 1982) is an English cricketer who plays international cricket for the England cricket team. He also plays county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. He is a right-handed higher/middle order batsman, described in The Times as an "exquisite rapier," and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler. He is also noted for his sharp reflexes and often fields in close catching positions. He has scored sixteen Test centuries and one ODI 100. He is one of only a handful of Batsman to have scored a test century against all current test playing nations (this excludes Zimbabwe).

In the 2006 New Year Honours List, Ian Bell was awarded the MBE for his role in the successful Ashes campaign of 2005. In November 2006, he was awarded the Emerging Player of the Year award by the International Cricket Council. During 2008 and 2009, he was a more infrequent member of the England teams – however he reclaimed his Test place during the 2009 Ashes, which England won, and featured in several ODIs the following year. During 2010, he captained Warwickshire to victory in the CB40 final before scoring his first Ashes century the following winter as he helped England retain the Ashes down-under. Warwickshire County Cricket Club awarded Bell a benefit in 2011.

Stuart Christopher John Broad (born 24 June 1986) is a cricketer who plays Test and One Day International cricket for England and is currently the captain of their Twenty20 team. A left-handed batsman and right-arm seam bowler, Broad's professional career started at Leicestershire, the team attached to his school, Oakham School; in 2008 he transferred to Nottinghamshire, the county of his birth and the team for which his father played. In August 2006 he was voted the Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year.

He was a vital member of the victorious 2009 Ashes squad, and he won Man of the Match in the fifth Test at the Oval, after figures of 5/37 in the afternoon session of the second day. His bowling was also instrumental in helping England win the 2010 ICC World T20. On 30 July 2011, at the Nottingham Test match against India, he achieved a Test match hat trick in the process gaining his then best Test figures of 6–46. As a batsman, he holds the second-highest ever Test score made by a number 9 after his 169, his first century in first-class cricket, against Pakistan in August 2010.At the start of the Summer in 2012 Broad returning from injury produced figures of 7 for 72 in a match haul of 11 wickets against the West Indies.

Ricky Thomas Ponting AO (born 19 December 1974), nicknamed Punter, is an Australian cricketer, a former captain of the Australia national cricket team between 2004 and 2011 in Test cricket and 2002 and 2011 in One Day International cricket. He is a specialist right-handed batsman, slips and close catching fielder, as well as a very occasional bowler. He represents the Tasmanian Tigers in Australian domestic cricket, the Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash League, and played in the Indian Premier League with the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2008.

Ponting made his first-class debut for Tasmania in November 1992, when just 17 years and 337 days old, becoming the youngest Tasmanian to play in a Sheffield Shield match. However, he had to wait until 1995 before making his One Day International (ODI) debut, during a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand in a match against South Africa. His Test debut followed shortly after, when selected for the first Test of the 1995 home series against Sri Lanka in Perth, in which he scored 96. He lost his place in the national team several times in the period before early-1999, due to lack of form and discipline, before becoming One Day International captain in early-2002 and Test captain in early-2004.