England hopefuls including James Vince and Liam Dawson are improving their six-hitting skills - thanks to former Hampshire batsman Julian Wood's BASEBALL knowledge.

Wood, who played for Hampshire from 1989-93, is now a batting coach with a unique take on the discipline after developing an interest in baseball on a family holiday.

A left-hander who made 960 first-class runs at 29 for Hampshire, Winchester-born Wood began developing his innovative 'Power Hitting Programme' after a chance meeting with the Texas Rangers coach.

Wood already works with a handful of counties, while England's Alex Hales and former Hampshire star Michael Lumb have both sought personal sessions.

But it is the ECB who have become his highest-profile partner.

After working with Dawson, Vince and the rest of the Performance Programme at Loughborough last week, he is heading to Dubai to work with some of the England Lions batsmen, including captain Vince.

Explaining his unlikely journey, the 46-year-old says: "It happened purely by accident when a friend of mine moved to the States to live. I went out for a holiday and my two boys were hitting in the batting cages they have there.

"I bumped into a guy called Scott Coolbaugh, who was the hitting coach for the Rangers at the time. He didn't know anything about cricket, but we got chatting and that was it.

"I went back to the States and Scott said why don't you come and spend a week with the Rangers? I was purely watching, chatting to the hitters, I was there on game day in the dugout...then I started writing stuff down, started putting it all together and thought 'there's something in this'."

Wood's approach to the game can sound somewhat technocratic - he talks of 'base stance loads', 'rotational power' and 'power ratio transfer' - but the end result is mass entertainment: six hitting.

"Basically a ball has got to leave the bat at 83mph to clear a 90-yard boundary," he says with calculated certainty.

"So I'm trying to get them as close to that as they can. In baseball, that sort of thing is huge. In my academy now, the first thing I do is look at a kid's hand speed.

"I've got 10-year-olds doing what the England guys are doing.

"It's trying to create the modern-day hitter because the game is going like that.

"I've spent five years doing this now and I don't think anybody else is doing it as in depth.

"People will say we practise this that and the other, but they won't have looked at it as deep as I have."

Wood also played 42 one-day matches for Hampshire, making 792 runs at 23 before playing minor counties cricket for Berkshire.

He has run the JWCricket Academy for the last 11 years.

Andy Flower, the head coach of the EPP and the Lions, said: “We’ve brought Julian in specifically to focus on power-hitting.

"He’s been working with our guys during this indoor centre phase, and he’s also coming out to the Emirates with us when we go on our training camp – and for every day of that three weeks, our guys will be exposed to learning more about how they hit the ball powerfully, power positions, hitting from a strong base, getting your hands through the ball at speed and working with him. Individually they can do that and maximise their capability.

“Julian has worked with us before, he’s done a really good job, and it’s another option to offer our players.”