Month: January 2016

It’s got to feel like you.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

There are no constants. Everything is mitigated by circumstance or context. For all our efforts to gather in meaning or truth, glorious, nose-thumbing reality intervenes. On the one hand to remind us we’re only human – only individual – and on the other to deflate our pomp. In life and in sport.

So (for example!) we’ve recalibrated our cricket coaching; we speak of Core Principles rather than Technical Models. We question and we question to unfurl answers, decisions, ownership from within the player. We throttle back our opinion, our ego, our instinct to contradict, in order to facilitate. We’ve become model humans; wise, generous, liberal, humble. In theory.

In practice we moan and bitch and pull our hair out at the sheer incompetence just like always. But we keep a lid on the bollockings – mostly, probably. We rant about the ECB coming over all generic and politically correct and ‘forgetting’ that cricket IS unique. Its complexities. Its predication upon repeatable skills, skills which must deny the encroaching possibilities, the errors which will be punished. We coaches battle with or against this need to prescribe for excellence and the higher impulses towards player-centredness.

It’s not easy but it’s fabulous. In the sense that a) it’s magnificently challenging b) it’s fun c) it’s perversely right to shoot for individual brilliance over theoretical alignment. Coaching cricket is absolutely wonderful because… it makes you wonder about stuff. Not least this balancing of how much freedom to offer, when you may know that discipline (possibly of the technical variety) will, pound for pound, probably enable greater success than (say) allowing Player X to continue to ‘play by instinct’. Maybe.

An example of this gorgeous conundrum might be as follows: young(?) Player Z has an extraordinary eye and a capacity to take the game away from the opposition with the bat. Because he or she swings freely and quite simply generally connects – beautifully. However, you have observed both in practice and in matches the tendency for the front foot ‘clearing’ to (either) draw the head inside the line of the ball early and/or affect balance. Meaning mistimed strokes or miscues and trouble.

The issue is compound. Coach should probably say something (but is this re philosophy or technique?)

Wrong to be the style-cramping miserablist but also wrong to leave innocence un-warned, unadvised. Few would now row entirely against the tide for dynamic/counter-attacking batting but in my experience few coaches would be content to keep schtumm when they can see that some of the risk might be mitigated by a few words around form or base or head.

One model might be to ask the player questions about the implications of being less than balanced (even) when playing aggressively. Then bring out the sub-Churchillian stuff. Make clear that it’s the player’s moment; they choose, they act. We can theorise all day about agility, belief and commitment but in the moment the player must be the expressor of all that. Which brings me back to my title.

Another, more personal example. I was a decent bowler; like the rest of the universe I was told aged twelve I should look to be playing First Class Cricket but a zillion things intervened, including my lack of that kind of ability. But I could bowl quickish and I could also bowl quickish leg-cutters by doing something weirdly akin to the back-of-the-hand thing even when bowling swiftly. Nobody taught me; I found this weapon. I loved finding things, especially on those very rare occasions when I had a proper cricket ball in my hands – a brand new cherry, incidentally, was completely unheard of.

I grew up on the fringes of the game rather than right in it so this may mean I had less exposure to coaching. But the facts that I went to a relatively humongous state school and that coaching barely existed back then also weigh in here. However they do not alter the feeling that my love of bowling results mainly from faffing about; running in and trying things with my mates. Bowling, in fact; in our case at a block of wood in a disheveled net on the British Legion field down the road.

I labour these points because it strikes me there is no substitute for at least some ‘free practice’ and because more importantly I’m clear that only I knew how this particular delivery really felt. It was my process. This is not to say that it couldn’t later be broken down and ‘understood’ by others skilled in coaching or analysis; it surely could. But inevitably it remains unique. Which is surely part of the magic? Stay with me.

I have a concern that pace bowlers (maybe in particular?) are sometimes ill-served by coaches who want to direct them towards their understanding of best practice. (In other words, change their action). This may be the result of over-zealousness or quite frequently because these coaches feel the breath of other, more senior voices around them. You legitimise yourself, you puff out your chest and say something you imagine sounds powerful – authoritative.

God it’s tempting at my amateur level to tell a bowler all you know about bowling when his dad (who played for Glamorgan) or another coach is edging into earshot. Instead all parties might be better served if a few friendly questions are asked, leading the player towards two or three (not 42 or 43!) checkpoints for when they’re bowling. Two or three things to return to before clearing the mind, concentrating on the stumps and running in freely – like a kid on the field with his mates.

There’s no wider agenda here. I’m not alluding to alleged failings at Loughborough or revisiting Finngate. I don’t know the circumstances or the relevant individuals. However I am chipping into the debate because I’m a bowler and a coach and I recognise acutely some of the issues. To plunge again into the general, I would be very loath to change the action of a bowler significantly unless it was absolutely nailed on that injury had been the direct result of that action. Instead, mostly, I would be saying this to the seamer(s) in my charge –

Hey mate you know what things keep you in order – what your checks are. So focus on them. Then calm yourself, run in with energy, follow through.

I’m happy enough with that. I have on board the (compound) idea that yes we should be offering Core Principles and – reference those batting skills – yes we can rightly encourage positivity whilst (also) playing the match situation. But ultimately, ultimately…

It’s got to feel like you.

There’s a welcome.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 4 Comments

Last night I was buzzing. I’m going to bore you with it – the detail of some of it, too, – because (who knows?) it may be either relevant or it might, in an abstract way, ‘cheer you up’. Plus I’m still buzzing.

But what follows, with its adrenalin-fuelled odour of Mission Statement, is not supposed to be some model, some icon of good practice. It’s just another contribution to the debate. If it’s unusually detail-heavy, that’s because I’m imagining other sports-peeps with similar interests or concerns may be perusing.

Now we’re talking cricket but please don’t be put off by that. We’re also talking – really talking – #inclusion, #development, #sport, the human. Big Things; proper Guardian-reading adult hashtags; but in the context of wee humans, mainly, so don’t tell me you’re not interested. It’s for the kids.

Okay so there are Test Matches and Big Bashes and bawling crowds and trampolines and trumpets and y’know – glory. But there is also the tiddly, inconsequential stuff. Let’s call it the grassroots – even if a fair portion of the resultant grassroots action takes place on a Leisure Centre floor, or on what most of us call an ‘astro.’

Last night, in a hall that has the feel almost of an old-school gymnasium, 16 kids turned up to one of our cricket hubs. Hardly earth-shattering, so for that to mean anything I’m going to have to explain some stuff. Let’s take a deep breath together.

In the search for alternative ways to offer up cricket to children aged 6-11, we (Cricket Wales, Pembrokeshire Posse) came up with the cunning plan to deliver in a ‘non-club’ setting and then secured three Leisure Centres. But… why now, why midwinter?

Firstly it felt worthwhile to extend the profile and availability of the game locally – whilst accepting entirely the primacy of clubs. Secondly, as L C’s are often simply unavailable to us in the summer (and weather then theoretically at least supports outdoor cricket!) it made enough sense to crack on in the cold and dark. I should add that this is something of a pilot scheme but also that we believe it’s important – possibly crucial – to broaden our appeal beyond the keen, ball-tracking eyes of the gifted.

That then, is some of the why. The how was less of a novelty for us, in that I then went into local primary schools and delivered some ‘taster’ sessions and/or spoke in assemblies to try to enthuse children towards the activity. Which is kindof what I generally do.
With an unhelpful(?) break over Christmas, we really weren’t sure if we could maintain sufficient numbers to continue into the New Year. The centres have been very supportive but clearly there’s an economic reality of sorts even here, in the joyous, energising land of play.

With children going free if they already have a membership and paying two to three pounds if not, the project is vulnerable should less than about ten or a dozen children attend each one-hour hub. (Naturally we’d prefer more – 15-20 ideally.) Cricket Wales fund me and the Leisure Centres have to pay my partner-in-crime, Craig. Nobody’s making money here; it’s about opening up opportunities – to either play cricket or inhale the culture of physical activity in a particular space – or both.

Pre Santa’s delivery of new Gray Nicholls or Ni-kees, so attendances predictably had begun to dip slightly; hence we were conscious we may need to pull out all the stops to find enough bodies. We got on twitter to promote the hubs again, as well as re-sending posters into schools. My suspicion is, however, that the notices delivered via facebook – for a smallish fee, to all users in a particular post code – may have been key to refreshing and re-booting the return to action. (This was another first, for us, by the way. Forty-odd quid that I expect will make several weeks or possibly months-worth of cricket possible.)

I feared or expected only six children might turn up for the first post-Krimble session. We had sixteen. I appreciate this may not sound like a triumph but I know just how powerfully these sessions can act on children – maybe particularly children who get left behind when the alpha males/females are choosing teams in the playground. Cue the brief appalling digression…

In ‘Just one experience’, I wrote about how impactful (even) very ‘loose’ or profoundly non-technical sessions can be. (http://cricketmanwales.com/2015/12/15/just-one-experience – Go back a coupla posts on this site – you’ll find it.) Lots of people liked it – got it – that sense of a young human lighting up, opening up, through sport. Like most coaches that’s what drives me – and if that is revealing of some intrinsic arrogance then so be it. I love to play a part in that inching or lolloping towards expression and movement. It’s massively inspiring for me to see children blown away or buzzing with what they’ve done; it’s my privilege and responsibility to offer up the game and do it well in the knowledge that this might change something.

Anyways, back to that sixteen – those sixteen kids.

They make a glorious dollop of change and inspiration possible by making this hub viable – and this was the difficult one in terms of numbers. As it happens in the last 24 hours more people have come back to me on twitter and are committing their kids. From the Sports Development Militia point of view, it’s also important that we may have found another way of reaching people.

Weirdly, this latter point – the facebook option – feels like a watershed moment, given one of the intentions was to open this up to children who might find the club environment waaay too challenging to contemplate. There’s something about the part-private, part immaculately ‘populist’ post-code slam-dunk blanket-coverage-wallop that I like and it looks to have worked, or helped.

In this particular centre last night eleven of these boys and girls were ‘new’ – meaning they didn’t attend prior to Christmas, when the project started.

New attendees are clearly the gold dust, the holy grail and the bees knees when it comes to the Key Performance Indicators that S D Militia everywhere cherish. I can see why, but as the front man in much of this, gifted the role of interacting with and hopefully encouraging children towards something I know to be fabulous and growing, I’m probably a whole lot less interested in the numbers than I’m sounding here. Yes I’m chuffed that it was sixteen not six… but I’m more bothered by how these sessions feel to the kids.

So, whilst this blog is about the circumstances around capturing these young cricketers, do not, my friends, get side-tracked into thinking that anything is remotely as important as the quality of experience in that sports hall. Migrations mean nothing if the sessions are dull or inappropriate.

A final thought. It hasn’t escaped our attention that the children who fall(?) into the ‘Na, not a natural’ category may quite possibly still offer up 40 years of wunnerful service as an administrator/scorer/groundsman at a cricket club they patently love. Possibly despite never having represented it on the pitch. This phenomenon clearly becomes more likely if they have a great experience of knockabout or festival cricket games – say using a tennis ball or windball… in a local Leisure Centre.

Broadly, the point I am making is that we cricketpeeps need to offer many things. And we’re looking to do that. The game is sensational but it can seem dauntingly technical or structured or dull, actually, from the outside, or from knee-high to a grasshopper. And we need – we really need – to welcome folks in.

Views.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had David Coleman’s signature squawk reverberating through my consciousness this week.

EXTRAORDINARY!!

This of course a function of my age and disposition as a dumbed-down sporty geezer, every ‘natural’ response to news or events played out around the place being filtered through ball(s)-tinted memory.

So no surprises that what felt like an EXTRAORDINARY week of cricket-related drama – Newlands/Gayle/Big Bashings – resulted in such a violent struggle for understanding that I’m fearing I may myself have been the subject of this other Colemanballs…

He just can’t believe what’s not happening to him.

Nor can I be sure if

In a moment we hope to see the pole vault over the satellite

is something a daft-but-lovable commentator once said or a perfectly reasonable – if surrealist – appreciation of how things currently are.

Life is bewilderingly wunnerful but I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the coalescence – or should that read ‘submergence? – of World Events into the chavisthmus that is sport-in-my-head. I’m not sure how wise or practicable or manageable it is, being unsure which time-zone hold sway or where the edges are between Dukes or Kookaburras or Gun Control or Nuclear Tests. Pretty frequently, it’s turned out (sorry Bethan, sorry kids!) I’ve been both manically watchful and glazed over; immune and ecstatic; absent and then wallowing in the profound. Essentially lost to it.

This evening is a very different evening from the morning we had this morning.

Much of this is down to the Test Match at Newlands, a venue which c’mo-on, has hardly helped. As a plainly ludicrous mixture of the sun-blasted, glacially-perfect picture postcard-with-chronic-baggage and the symphonically serene (but not)… this choice of location location has done nothing to still the fast-twitch/slow-mo-ness of *experience*.

The second thrash between South Africa and England has been something else. Principally it’s been a reminder that the word epic is waaay too small, too monotone.

Five days in a Test Match. Suddenly that’s become a subject for debate not a statement of fact. The Instagram Generation snipping and snapping away – eroding. The Authorities frantically feeling the pulse of Public Opinion. (Quite rightly.) Thunder rumbling elsewhere – colourful, relevant, undeniably (financially) attractive thunder. And pray what did the gods of Table Mountain portend? Of what did they speak? And what be their message?

Firstly, that Test Cricket ain’t dead. Not even over that crazily anachronistic five day thing it ain’t dead. In fact (yes, whilst we take stock and whilst we inevitably make increasing provision for short-format cricket) Newlands spoke eloquently of the unique fascinations of the long-form game.

Nothing else has all of it. Not the brewing or unraveling individual processes with scope for redemption four/five days later… in the same game(!) Not the accruing mental challenges that wear upon the soul, the confidences, in different genres. Not that cruel exposure when your bit fails – when you let down your mates, your country – or (despite ALL THAT TIME, that selfless effort!!) you cannot make a breakthrough. Not that particular kind of poignant exhilaration, when your ton means everything to you, your dad, maybe and yet this is not, ultimately, triumph itself.

We can talk about the event or the events for decades (and may) but surely Newlands can only be understood as some kind of majestic, appalling, glorious, defiant, inconclusive tribute to (or of) our capacity to view. To understand perspective, meaning, action – substance. Look at Stokes! Look at Bairstow. Look at that shrunken Amla reinventing some form, some proper Amla! Look at the implications of that field change; the offer of that boundary over the top. Look at the newspaper, even – it’s gone quiet. What day is it – or sorry, which day is it?

The word is unique. And whilst of course this doesn’t necessarily or always mean good it does mean something. Probably that anything providing this measure of drama and tension and atrophy and drinking time and perplexity and grief and scope really may, in our short-format world, be kinda precious. The knitting or muttering aproval or the silent joy of it. Maybe especially that thing that non-cricketpeeps don’t get – that dimension of time: the thing that means it’s okay to miss something or drift from proceedings and still be completely doing the cricket.

So forgive me for not majoring on Stokes or Bairstow or Amla or the pitch. That’s all stored, for sure, alongside the blurred recognition of this week’s iconic facts and figures. What got me though was the sense of twisting, turning, unfurling but then foreclosed drama. The kind of drama over time you just don’t see.

Elsewhere the Gayle controversy confirmed everyone’s prejudices about everything – unsurprisingly. However if you didn’t hear Melinda Farrell and Neroli Meadows interviewed for ABC Grandstand then you effectively lose the right to your opinion. As I said on twitter

Not good enough to say the #Gayle thing – however it was intentioned – was ‘harmless’. Harm was done.

Finally, something sad. Two young men – one 22, one 28 – deeply embedded into that soft target the #cricketfamily were lost to us, suddenly, in recent days.

As I write the circumstances around their deaths remain (I hope this doesn’t sound either callous or indiscreet) slightly uncomfortably mysterious. But what is clear to me from my involvement with both that cricket community and the internet is that a genuine and powerful amount of love for these fellas has been stirred; suggesting overwhelmingly they were outstanding humans as well as outstanding talents.

Can we agree that in all sincerity the names of Matt Hobden and Tom Allin have been marked and appreciated within our disparate but strangely/wonderfully united throng? Can we accept both the sadness and the fact that they were involved – they made an elite-level contribution – to something fabulous? To cricket.

I’m fearful of finishing on a morbid or a corny note. But would like to say something about the value and maybe the appeal of this daft game of ours. And I promise this won’t be a quote from David Coleman.

I get why people love cricket. (I do.)  It’s something to do with the richness of the challenges. The diversity. Or maybe just the feel of a new ball – a cherry-red cricket ball – in your hand. Or it’s the tactical ‘get your head round this, skip’ thing. Or it’s the slowness, or the rewards for flow, for timing, for movement. Or it’s how, in its incredible complexity it’s so simply revealing of the human. That bloke or girl swinging a bat, bowling a ball.

But hey, that’s just how I look at it.