coaching

Skilled work.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

On coaches and crowds…

The Rugby World Cup has been/is a triumph for sport, yes? Not just for rugby but for sport. Superbly dramatic and almost entirely free from ‘simulation’ or disrespect between players or teams. Genuinely uplifting, in fact, in terms of the world showing us that brother/sisterhood thing we might be fearing subsumed in the age of diving and conniving footballers, £6 Cornish pasties and an intimidating multitude of *revealing* camera angles.

Folks have loved other folks’ teams – Japan-lurv being the most obvious example. So, shedding the baggage of our postmodernist awarenesses, we can simply agree (can’t we?) that it’s been bloody great?

But what can we learn?

In sport atmosphere is BIG. Athletes feed off energies from the crowd (and clearly vice-versa) in a way that really can inspire brilliant execution. It may be that truly elite-level athletes get to be that way because they harness, or are comfortable with or yes, inspired by the heat or hoopla of the big, big challenge. Magic players, far from being undermined by the pressures of the environment (noise/distraction/nerves?) blossom, find their truest finest selves in those moments – hence the overuse of the word ‘expression’. Almost without exception, from Brighton to Geordieland, #RWCup2015 crowds were buzzing… and the players got busy expressing.

Cast your mind back a week or two and something very different was occurring; the first Test Match in Abu Dhabi.

Here England and Pakistan ultimately served up some proper drama, after wading through a weirdly debilitating silence for four days. The players in fact emerged with an almost surreal level of credit but for an age a good deal of what happened felt emasculated, or short of sport. Cook flourished and important *statements* may have been made but with nobody there the event of it felt more like a drawn corpse than a live contest. What fascinates me – or rather one of the many things that fascinated me about this test – was what effect if any the utter lack of atmosphere had on what went on.

Let me swiftly add the rider that I speak as an advocate of Test Match cricket who (whilst getting the current impatience with it) would defend the capacity of the sport to bear the occasional slow burner ‘midst the contemporary carve-tastic norm. Consequently I was almost as unflustered as the England skipper when every pundit and former player in the universe was wailing on about dullness.

This daft thing in the desert was a small percentage part of the dynamically evolving Test Universe; it was entitled to its loopy-scratchy, defiantly anti-dynamic dawdle.

Like the Big Lebowski I chilled – abided – watching and waiting, wondering what might happen if an almighty clamour were to accompany a key wicket or a lush spell of bowling. Wondering how demotivating that yawning quiet might be – how seductive, how soporific to the fast-twitch fibres. The minor revelation came that things might have been different.

As I write #TMS is on again, for the second test; apparently (if my ears are to be believed) there is again no crowd. A challenge for bowlers – maybe particularly seam bowlers? – to get on a roll, on a flat pitch, in the sun, with no crowd.

The atmosphere(s) when Japan beat the Boks or when Ireland turned the Millenium green were both remarkable and essential to the sport occurring on that day. It could be that Japan might never have beaten South Africa in a near-empty stadium. Their fabulous momentum was predicated on quick ball and some irresistible spirit mexican-waving its way round the stands and from the stands into the bloodstream of the game. It was of course wonderful – dare I say it? – literally wonderful.

Crowds, then – mere gatherings of bystanders – play their part in the sporting cowabunga. Let’s note that… and if we happen to have some influence over where Big Games are actually played… remember. As we remember (alongside our friends from Bayern) the cost factor, eh?

Something else about the Rugby World Cup has really registered with the media (who’ve been all over it) and with those of us who either coach or bawl from the touchlines; the Skills Divide.

The domination of the tournament by southern hemisphere sides has been accompanied by significant rumination from the northern press – as though there’s been some uniformly powerful lightbulb moment. It’s clearly dawned that the key difference is in skills, by which I think folks mean the freedom and excellence of successful execution.  Most of us will imagine what we might call expressive skills; stuff we called natural ability until that became an area overloaded with difficulties.

Everyone from Brian Moore to Paul Hayward to well, everyone has been banging on about the skills that get you tries or opportunities (even) when things are tight. Skills that separate. Skills which may range from soft, intuitive hands to mind-blowing composure and decision-making.

It may be kinda funny that in the Everything Accounted For age, with typically more coaches and trainers and ‘support staff’ in place than can possibly be justified, we have such a universally recognised DOH!! How did we miss that one?!? moment.

Everybody’s leapt upon the essential ‘truth’ of it; Wales were great but couldn’t finish, Ireland were outclassed by The Pumas(!), Scotland have transformed and may have been robbed, England and France were embarrassing. But mostly, The North lacked brilliance.

Somebody soon enough will make a counter-argument to the current rash of theories aligned around Northern Bash undone by Southern Flash. In fact, because it’s plainly a tad simplistic I may even do it myself. But if we accept that there is a case to answer, here – i.e that we in the North are producing less gifted or less ingenious/expressive rugby players – why would that be? Does this transfer across into other team sports? How come our talent is less talented (or less able to perform) than (say) Kiwi talent?

The theses are already underway, right?

I can speak of but not for the ECB Coaching set-up on the ideas around the facilitation of talent. Here there is an acceptance that diverse opportunities for sport and broad development – towards being a better human, actually – fit with the pathway towards brilliance. Coaching is (or aims to be) more generous than previously; less prescriptive. Core Principles are offered to players as a support, through which those same players should find a way that works – that feels like them. This counts for a pretty radical shift when compared to decades of technical models and acutely fine-tuned ‘demonstration’.

Plenty of coaches are concerned that the growth of a globalised, t’internetted Sports Development Corporation necessarily means things get genericised, flawed by soundbites, or compromised as we all seek to do the Right Thing. We all finish up saying the same thing in order to sound credible – or we all seek to sound ‘left-field’ enough to stand out. We’re all too painfully aware.

I have seen enough to acknowledge both shortcomings in what the ECB call their ‘player-centred’ approach and in the creep towards multiskills BUT have no doubt that this loosening of the technical shackles is helpful in terms of unleashing or freeing talent. Of course this talent might be guided by what we might call technical specialists but let them not clutter up the mind of the athlete. Let them offer up their gift.

It may be foolish to meander between sports but I make no apology. I remain alive to the possibility of wonder through daft stuff like rugby and cricket, as well as through cerebral revelation via culture. I make no qualitative distinctions between them. They both still make me smile – as does the following wee notion.

Graham Henry (who has written so outstandingly on #RugbyWorldCup2015 and matters beyond, recently) has coached at the elitest of elite levels, yes? Known for his intelligence, thoroughness, experience, success(!) etc etc. Whilst All Blacks coach he was approached by key players, after a significant disappointment, as he no doubt planned his next Churchillian, team-gathering riposte. They asked him who the speechifying was for – them or him? They asked him – Graham Henry, aged 50-odd, at the height of his powers – if maybe he should say a bit less and trust a bit more. Graham Henry now doesn’t do team talks. He builds teams… from individuals.

Questions for the game.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 9 Comments

Every sport is navel-gazing. By that I mean doing that soul-searching thing to find a way to either grow or sustain; holding workshops or seminars where the men (mainly) who administrate gather to chew the fat and challenge themselves over matters of strategy and policy. I realise now that the quality of questions asked at these pow-wows is erm , powerfully important: in that respect it’s not unlike coaching.

I went to two days of exactly these kinds of meetings earlier this week as part of the Cricket Wales posse charged with thinking deeply but also freely about what we do. I should say clearly now that what follows is neither a Cricket Wales-approved synopsis of what happened and what this means, nor some kind of manifesto.

On the first count let it be known that whilst I am unashamedly proud – yes, proud! – to work for CW, I speak and occasionally get up a lather very much of my own and am therefore what we might call a medium-loose cannon. I’m a team-man, certainly but have waaaaaay too many fast-twitch fibres to be a full-time office-waller and/or strategic thinker – for now!

However – and in contradiction – I do get that there is value in skilled and informed and generous brainstorming; it’s complacent not to do it and (for the cynics out there) my experience has been positive, in the sense that I now reckon people genuinely work hard and honestly at these gatherings – certainly our lot do. Then we drink brandy ‘til 2 a.m.

In essence, during our medium-epic philosophical shakeout, we were set two prime tasks; to identify the three most significant issues facing Junior Cricket in Wales and then, having reflected on those, propose what we might do differently next year.

(I may need to briefly remind or inform my sagacious readership that as I am a Community Coach, the bulk of my work and that of my colleagues is around enthusing kids for the game and getting them to transfer from schools into clubs/hubs or leisure centres so that the healthy cricket stuff sustains – hence the concentration on that end of the market. Cricket Wales, of course, is charged with leading and inspiring as well as administrating the whole of the recreational game in Wales but we Community Coaches inevitably(?) spend the bulk of our time playing daft games wiv kids.)

The following – a shocking mixture of ‘conclusion’, ‘experience’, hunch and sooo-premely insightful observation – will need some care, as a diplomatic disaster or twelve could unfold *unless* you are prepared to believe me when I say that neither myself nor my colleagues are characterised by a kind of appalling and arrogant CricketWalescentricity. (I promise.)

Having looked at rafts of data and swapped intensely our many, many coaching/club/school impressions, the clear winner in the Big Issue For Junior Cricket stakes was (the idea that the) experience for children who had transferred into clubs wasn’t magic or entertaining or (who knows?) comfortable enough for enough of those children to stick with cricket. A big number of kids were gathered in but a smallish number stayed.

There are several ways we might interpret that – from the idea that the game itself proved to be unappealing after a few sessions to the notion that something within or about the club experience was undermining (excuse the Sports Development Speak) migration. Plus, there would be sub-notions that I simply don’t have time and space to address – for now. Clearly, if the proverbial lessons are to be learned then the data – which shows a big drop off between the numbers of children who actually went to clubs, having been inspired (or bundled kicking and screaming) by Community Cricket Coaches and those who stayed there for more than a few weeks (and therefore became new members at those clubs) must be de-mystified if possible.

We threw most of the relevant notions round the room, earnestly as well as liberally and there was a consensus around the following; that whilst some clubs offer new children the kind of (actually) pretty dynamic and inclusive and entertaining sessions they get from Community Coaches who visit their schools (generally for around four lessons), others don’t. The experience is either a little intimidating or starchy or dull… or something.

We cannot know what every child feels about the transfer into clubs and clearly children (like allegedly mature adults) don’t always tell us the truth, anyway. But plenty do get asked about this – it is surveyed. Could be that we need more and better information around this but for what it’s worth (and I am clear it’s worth something) the Community Cricket Coaches and their immediate seniors the Cricket Development Officers of Wales were notably in agreement that migration numbers fall away sharply partly because sessions aren’t fun enough to make it worth the child (and by implication, the family) committing to the club regularly.

The chief difficulty around this may be the argument that Doh! Of course Cricket Wales staff are going to conclude that their coaches are more fabulous than those unblessed with the CW badge! Their very lives and jobs depend upon deciding to Big Up and Justify their own excellence!

People, on this one, all I can say is I’m pretty certain some of us like the sound of our own voices (Exhibit A, this website) and ye-es, it’s possible that we are the annoying geezers who Say Too Much Too Loudly whenever the opportunity to peacock our cricket knowledge around the gaff presents itself but honestly… we ain’t so cheap as to masturbate our own egos over this one. It’s too big, too important and besides – again, honestly – as a mob our lot are too genuinely concerned for the good of the game to invent some self-serving cobblers to deflect undeserved flak someplace else.

All of which means I am saying to you, to my colleagues and soulbrothers and sisters in club cricket, that it could be the case that some children, newly arrived at your club, are being inadequately accommodated. Some are feeling that sessions are a bit dull; some feel excluded – even though they have manifestly made a step towards the game; some maybe feel a bit lost. I should add – and not just for the sake of ‘fairness’ – that all of these feelings may arise in one of my sessions… but percentage-wise this appears to be less likely than in a club environment.

Please try to get past the arrogance implicit in the cricketmanwales.com view of this and ask yourself how new, young players arriving at your club feel about what you’re offering. What is training like, for them? What is the environment like – what are the people these children are being led or coached or signed in by sounding like? Think about how the children who may never make one of your competitive teams but who have stepped across that threshold anyway feel. Maybe think about how your club activity fits against the fun festivals and inclusive, un-threatening, softball sport these children may have gotten used to at school. There may be an argument that you should be offering an extension of that experience as well as developing competitive players/Test stars of the future.

I’m here to ask some difficult questions. I realise the answers may be about changes in format or governance as well as culture change in individual clubs. I’m not providing answers and I know what I do – what Cricket Wales – does is flawed too. This blog – all of these blogs – are about making a contribution to a debate. Endof.

Look I know there are many many wonderful clubs and coaches out there. I am privileged to know and to work with an inspiring lump of them, either as a volunteer, or as a Cricket Wales fella, wearing *that badge*, remembering *that training*, aspiring to *those goals*. But however unpalatable it may sound, I am clear there are things we all have to improve, not just for some spurious need to ‘grow the game’ but because surely we are all together charged with offering our players – young and old – something fabulous for them.

Finally, it may sound like I’m somehow down on traditional cricket and traditional cricket clubs. No. Nothing I’ve argued is to suggest that traditional cricket is either out-dated or inappropriate or short on fun. It ain’t. It’s wonderful. But my strong conviction is we may need to provide some other stuff too, for the kids who want to join us… but then turn away.

The Mad Batter’s Tea Party; Obvious Positives.

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Working in and for the game of cricket, I take more than a passing interest in how folks view all of its multifarious (or possibly just nefarious?) forms. (Go see Jarrod Kimber ‘bout that latter niche.) I’m as daft and as clueless as the next fan/coach/umpire/player about many things within what we might call the world of cricket but medium clued-in, I would say, on matters to do with coaching and retention – what the game (or, okaaay, what Cricket Wales) is looking to do.

I’m not boasting. I’m not saying I’m good at this or that, just that I have some knowledge – some information – stored on these issues, following turgid or revelatory classroom-bound discussions or blokey workshopping or centre-practice of cricket stuff. It’s what I do. Why wouldn’t I know something? If I don’t know what the path forward looks like on Coach Education and in terms of schools provision, I do know what’s being discussed, or put in place, or considered at local and national level. But ultimately… everything’s context.  Everything out there shapes things.

Cricket People are like Ordinary People in that they locate themselves, noisily or quietly, into wildly different zones of opinion or belief. Sometimes a level of global calm seems to win out, as the cricket equivalent of peacetime – or tea-time – prevails. Other times the brew is stronger and the scones, yaknow… stonier.

Now feels like a Mad Batters Tea Party. An incendiary, expressionistic, drug-addled cornucopia-fest. Where the crashbangwallop of the game magnificently and beautifully but maybe luridly reflects the noises off, the times, the turbidity currents building around cricket’s heaving continents. It’s excitingly off its own head.

The times of course do contribute to the vulcanism; ‘f you don’t like something or somebody you mercilessly troll them. ‘F you see the umpire got it wrong from 24 different angles you blow your collective, high definition fuse. If the game slows down you down another Fosters. So if this doesn’t seem like a Test Cricket kindofa time then maybe that’s because it really ain’t.

However. Despite the absurdities and indeed immoralities exposed by ‘Death of A Gentleman’; despite the *challenges* to fairness/honesty/decency implicit in an Indo-Aus-Giles Clark Pact; despite the alleged woefulness of some of the Ashes Women batting – despite the obscene hurry we’re all in to get somewhere brasher quicker – there are Obvious Positives. Even for Test Cricket. Surely there are? Positives which though they may not necessarily ‘grow the game’ – in that immortal phrase – may counter-intuitively perhaps preserve it and develop it.

I know some of these positives from my work and in that I am privileged. I see young girls in Penny Dropping mode as they get that this is their game too. I see the powerful and yet relatively untapped educational potential in upful, ‘physical’ but thoughtful school sessions – children building cricket games and therefore using a zillion ‘academic’ skills as well as heartily lugging round those limbs – moving. I meet, actually, loads of brilliant people, either in schools or within Cricket Wales or Glamorgan C.C.C. or elsewhere.  But hey look if you think I’m coming over all soft-sellingly pro- what I do then I’ll park that and go back to where we came in. Which was with perceptions – opinions.

I went both to the Ashes Test Match in Cardiff and the Bank Holiday double header extravaganza – where both men and women played T20 Internationals. Both were superb events, confirming the racy, thrilling, contemporary brilliance of short-format cricket and the traditional but evolving majesty of the five (soon-to-be-four) day experience. Moeen Ali was great. Ben Stokes was great – all kinds of things from that general upping of the ante to seeing Cook command the new era with confidence and imagination were great.

These days were both a novelty and a re-affirmation.  We’ve burst through something, haven’t we? Carved out of yesterday’s billion-year-old past.

I’ve previously wittered on about this new wild positivity – picked holes in it – but generally it’s pretty fab, right? It offers us cricketpeeps clear opportunities; let’s take them.

But enough foam for a minute. Here’s a wee story which feels relevant. ‘Sharing’ stuff, (hate that phrase!) asyado, on twitter, I happened to drop in a minor note of disappointment re the level of attendance at the beginning of the Women’s T20 and was fairly promptly slapped down for using the everydaysexism hashtag to accompany my (honestly relatively minor) gripe. I should say I have the luxury of being a complete nobody so this was not heavyweight trolling, you understand, this was two blokes.

They objected to my high-handedness and accused me of that kind of hypocrisy whereby you *support* something you don’t really support because (probably) you read that this is right in the Guardian. They said that the Women’s Ashes was poor and I shouldn’t be pretending otherwise, effectively: also that you can’t force people to watch something.

I know what they meant and that there is such a weasley phenomenon at work in the Liberal Mind. And I suppose I fall into that category. But they were wrong.

Firstly I hadn’t said or implied anything about the quality or otherwise of the game. Secondly they misunderstood – probably wilfully – the essence of my disappointment. Not wishing to use too much battery time on the discussion, I signed off promptly –
Have a good day, Genghis.

With the SSE Swalec emptyish rather than fullish as Brunt and Shrubsole went about their opening business and in the knowledge, frankly, that on a purely economic level it made sense for supporters to take in both internationals, I expressed disappointment. Why not support the women’s match, even if you find it less dynamic or entertaining – even if the ‘standard’ offends you? Don’t get it. Unless #everydaysexism.

To clasp that nettley comparison – this;
a) it’s both faintly ridiculous and mildly dumb to compare men and women – they’re simply different
b) (if) levels of power are the central issue maybe something could be done on type/weight of ball and/or length of pitch – if we become sure that women’s cricket needs to replicate men’s by becoming increasingly about elite-level mega-dynamism. If we don’t, then maybe (wonderfully/hilariously/enlighteningly) women’s cricket will be a/the game for skill, subtlety and patience, as things develop.

Finally on that, things have developed. Meaning despite the ‘distance yet to travel’ inferred by much of the writing on the Women’s Ashes, cricket played by women and girls is a cause for celebration and it seems essential and right to support it. Not indiscriminately but support it. Sure the scores are markedly lower, sure the hitting is markedly less wallopacious, sure the event is of a different timbre – currently and maybe permanently. But there has been and there will be rapid ‘progress’ as wider opportunities for top level competitive play/training/competition emerge.

Finally finally, watching from directly behind the bowler’s arm, I loved it that Anya Shrubsole (who bowled a flawed spell, ye-es!) swung the ball further than anyone of any sex on that double-header of a day. I also really enjoyed Brunt’s Proper Fast Bowler Attitude from t’other end.

Throw in Sarah Taylor’s nonchalant excellence behind the sticks and there you have three reasons to be cheerful. Obvious Positives. Now if we (the English/Welsh) can sort the Buttler batting thing out – oh and the Lyth one – and then get to the fascistic world-governance scene-thing, imagine how fabulous cricket could be?

Our cricket clubs… our juniors…and how we do this thing better.

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The bigger picture: @cricketmanwales is in the market for slinging ideas around and would be over the proverbial parrot if they triggered pretty much any kind of response. This is a friendly challenge – even if you reject it in a patronised huff.  It may mean nothing (not to me!) but @cricketmanwales has just been recognised by the ECB with an award for ‘Outstanding Contribution’ to Coaching.  So listen.

Firstly, housekeeping; there is no suggestion here that my/your/our club ‘model’ is necessarily broken, merely (like everything else) we can improve it. And maybe we need to. Secondly, I am acutely aware of the EM Forster notion that we may plan at the expense of joy – this may feel relevant. On that, two things;

1. I am abso-lutely in the free-spirited expressionist camp. Be witty and spookily in the moment.

2. The planning I’m onnabout here may be the gentle thinking ahead variety rather than any training dogma.  We must not do cricket practice by numbers, eh?

My friends I know how magbloodynificent much of the work that goes on in cricket clubs is and in no way am I looking to undermine that. Fact is though, (I think) despite the superlative efforts of the Essential Posse at every club – you know who you are – it’s proving difficult to retain players right through their teens and into glorious cricketing adulthood. So we need to do something.

Many things which compete or conspire against us cricketpeeps we simply cannot control. The proliferation of opportunities, the alleged decrease in attention span, the lust for instant reward – that’s all anti-cricket, or anti- Traditional Cricket, right? (There’s another argument here, around whether or how or why we might change the nature of cricket itself but let’s scoot right on past that baby, for now.)

The twitchiness and bitchiness of most of our modern interactions clash gaudily against the deep, rich stillness that characterises some forms of cricket. Be honest, that probably works against us? But as much as I’d like to offer oil painting classes and art cinema at Haverfordwest CC only some of this crazy flux is our responsibility. We can’t sort every headless-chicken of a thing. We can, however maximise or tailor the qualities of that defiantly philosophic, world-contrarily brilliant phenomenon we’ve got our hands on – cricket. Cricket in our clubs.

But wadda we need to do, I hear you ask?

People, it’s not like I or anyone else can direct you absolutely on this.  I’m throwing down a few thoughts here but the more I do this the more central the ability to ask good questions becomes.  So go do that.

Ask questions of the nature of what you’re doing as well as about the process of skill development. How are we sounding… to youngsters? Sure, cricket practice  needs those dry, instructive and reflective periods – it demands those, in fact – so steering kids through that is one of our responsibilities. But how do we keep all this jazzy and attractive enough to junior earthlings (too?)

A note here: coaching better doesn’t mean getting ‘too serious about stuff’ – as many seem to fear: it means being on the case and (asitappens) probably having a giggle. It means being sensitive to the mood of an individual and/or a group. It means being prepared as well as responsive – intuitive. And yeh – it’s a big ask.

One of the things we might do better is to increase the amount of fun/entertainment we offer during training. More than anything, perhaps, we should look to avoid drift; drift stifles both enjoyment and learning. (Doesn’t sound very sexy I know but) preparation and reflection can help us keep sessions bright and keep our young players with us.

So let’s have a wee think about stuff. Our responsibilities as coaches/cricket people are what, exactly?

Amongst many other things…
• To develop players towards excellence?
• To animate and enthuse?
• To ensure everyone remains healthy and safe.

To achieve these things what do we need? All three demand some planning; whether or not this is back of a fag-packet stuff or immaculate tables of options. Do something that works for you – I know what time pressures are all about, believe me.

My general proposal is that we become better focussed by setting out our objectives – perhaps our individual sessions? – significantly more clearly. Far from ‘putting young players off’, I think that we will retain and entertain our young players if we offer them something dynamic, something that leads them somewhere –  something other than just a hit, a throw, a bowl. For me, the essence of this has to have good energy; it has to grip these young people.

Let’s go back that one important step. Statistically, we are losing players from the game in the mid-late teens; I think this is partly because coaches let sessions drift or fail to inspire and these are things we can to some meaningful extent address.
If we accept at the very least that we could do things better so it may well follow that we need to plan things enough to make progress possible.

As an example if we ask ourselves what (broadly) we might need to cover with our young players, we might suggest;

• Core skills
• The generic game – an understanding of what you do
• Team needs

Then we need to address how best to offer up these skills. I’m suggesting a flexible coaching plan (Brit weather!) where ideally we set out objectives for individual sessions and for the season, with age-appropriate, challenging practice.  I stress again that your planning is there to free you up, to be the springboard from which you can confidently bound: I am FOR responsive, ingenious, individualised coaching.

We have to surely combine this with cool, longish-term thinking. Think through percentages of time spent on the three chief disciplines; think about how – and how much – technical information you give out. (Give kids four things to think about not forty-four!) Think about maintaining energy and focus throughout sessions in particular – about how you can minimise drift.

As coaches I’d suggest that an important part of what we do is both an assessment of how players are doing… and how well our sessions have gone… and relationships (the link, if any) between the two things.

Plus is there a way that we can support each other on what we do? Should we be having a monthly pow-wow to keep up to speed with player’s progress and our own delivery? Wouldn’t it be great if coaches shared ideas about particular sessions or games? It’s so-o beneficial to pick up a variation on a game – or a completely new drill – that can be both a hoot and a really healthy challenge. I love that.

Clearly there are issues of diplomacy around even the most casual and friendly coach ‘share’ sessions. Not always easy to find the right level of ease – we ain’t all extroverts, are we? But they are typically entertaining and genuinely instructive moments so find a way of holding the occasional coaches gathering where you throw around some cones or balls. Folks tend to be supportive once you get past any reticence.

Nets are for me the obvious example of where most clubs underachieve. Far too often somebody gets padded up and smashes through the ball for twenty minutes before somebody else does the same. Meanwhile bowlers bowl too much/too casually/without any real commitment. This must change. We need (and I would argue that the young players need)
• less nets/better nets
• clear objectives set by the coach – specific shots/specific gaps?
• a considered and challenging environment which seeks to replicate match conditions
• in other words, FOCUS
• plus… importantly, better attention to SAFETY ISSUES. How many close calls from a straight drive have you seen recently?

Maybe in nets we need cones to mark out where fielders are, we need two batsmen who actually run, we need CHALLENGES and DISCUSSION and LEADERSHIP from the coach. We need reasons to be doing what we’re doing.

I repeat that even though I know hard-ball-competent junior player’s first thought is to ‘go have a net’ and that they therefore equate that most immediately with real practice, it often tends to be poor practice. Guys and gals, we need to sort this one out. In a nutshell, reduce and improve your time in the nets.

This feels longish… and yet the strip’s barely been scratched. Enough, for now.

Whether we like it or not, we are facing all sorts of challenges – financial/competition from other clubs or sports/apathy amongst players and the general population(?) All these are arguments for improvement – for change. It’s a big ask. Especially when most of us are simply volunteers. But comrades… I’m asking. How can you/we/I do this thing better?

Kids go searching.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m no fan of Kevin Pietersen and never have been; I’ve never believed in him. I know plenty of folks think he’s a genius, a rare and special talent who’s simply been mismanaged but in accepting the bulk of that statement I reject him, utterly.

If the Steve Harmison story is true about KP flatly refusing to take throw-downs from senior England coaches then let that be my reason. If it’s not, let it be that I think his arrogance and his consistent failure to think of his mates and that team-thing marks him down as a… luxury item.

But hey guess what? Recently I’ve been ploughing through ECB Coaching Workshops and the thought struck me that KP – yes him with the ego – might have done something which may yet turn out to be profoundly positive. Maybe.

Between the Level 2 ECB Coaching Certificate and the new Performance strata there now lies a bunch of workshops. These are important in that they set out a good deal of the new ideology around coaching cricket in England and Wales. (Ideology? Oh YEAH, you better believe it.)

In the last eighteen months or so, following an epic lump of research, sports-scientific wotnots and cross-bi-lateral oojamiflips, the ECB has re-emerged from the swamp. Or should that be… the nets? There’s been a fascinating and genuinely radical shift in the thrust of coaching. Personally – and maybe I should be careful with what I say – I reckon you can feel the hand of the Sports Development Militias in it and you can certainly taste the political correctness of the era; neither of which is necessarily bad. But with generic views may come the occlusion of that which is unique to cricket.

The titles alone, of some of these workshops (and the fact that they are known as workshops, eh?) may tell you much of what you need to know. “Creating the Learning Climate for Children”. “Game-based Learning.” “Skill Development for Children”. Cutting through the inevitable (and inevitably transient) verbiage, there’s a powerful move towards ‘player-centred’ coaching, going way beyond tokenism towards the individual. This is big, ideologically-driven stuff aimed at making coaches work more about the player and less about the recall or display of their own cricket knowledge. I think some of this may have been prompted by KP, whose profile has been such that he could, conceivably, be a catalyst here.

Those last two paragraphs may have had too much cynicism lurking so let me immediately contradict. Or at least re-calibrate the tone. The changes are huge, or will feel that way to coaches brought through previous regimes – regimes which have themselves been rotated or cheese-grated through development over the years. But (genuinely) my experience of Cricket Wales/ECB Coach Education (and therefore my sense of the philosophical intent) has been both encouraging and challenging in a good way. Surprisingly perhaps, things feel quite dynamic back there. People seem to be alive to the need to transform; rapidly.

But back to KP. I’m guessing that opinions in the ECB hierarchy are about as divided when it comes to Pietersen as they are in the general population. In a private space 60% would describe him with a brisk four letter word – a recent former England skipper did exactly that, you may remember.

38% would say it doesn’t matter what we think of him or his methods – ‘e dun it on the pitch’. The remainder would splutter into their Pimms. What is interesting to me is that having seen/sat through these workshops, the voice of KP –in fact the noise that KP makes- about ‘not coaching talent out of kids’ booms out. Credit the ECB that he is the first face turned to the camera in a key video on skill development.

Predictably, Pietersen goes straight into his ‘Bell plays classically, I don’t: don’t go coaching kids there’s just the one way’ argument. Understandably. Justifiably. But it’s almost as if in their scramble to appease the twin-headed monster at shortish mid-off (Pietersen/the multi-sports-conversant, child-centred modernist and funder?) the ECB have changed everything. Perhaps, being broadsheet-reading, report-assimilating types they fear being called out for old fart-dom? Perhaps they are high on that elixir of the coaching industry age, branding – branding in the sense of renaming, re-infusing with sexy new jargon rather than psychotic (aaaaargh!!) market-driven branding.

This is certainly how the swing away from the previously central notion of (accepting the validity of) certain ‘Technical Models’ feels to many coaches who qualified pre-, say, 2012. Many are cynical. I am not, despite how this might sound. I view this stuff as a healthy challenge.

If Pietersen has bullied us into reviewing the very essence of coaching that is remarkable. That has happened. The talk is of ‘Core Principles’ now not ‘feet shoulder-width apart and blah-di-blah high elbow’. Skill is successful execution not necessarily a particular movement pattern. Players finding things and coaches asking questions are central. The essence of ECB coaching is bravely empowering… and that’s good.

Now because I don’t like the man I’m reluctant to give KP too much credit in this but the fact is too many coaches did have a very fixed idea of what skill looks like and they bored generations of twitching, net-bound youngsters with those ungenerous notions. They can’t get away with that now. The newer, younger coach on the block will either call them out or intervene, as I do, when somebody is saying too much/presenting 44 ideas not four to a group of nine year-olds.

So KP as crusader, then? Hardly. The man’s a tad more fixated on his image, his contracts and the most efficient route to the limelight for that. But he has stirred it, made his point and rendered this debate necessary. That’s a singular contribution.

It may be that the new, updated ECB risks alienating traditionalists and fails to address finer, technical points; I’ve heard it said that there are gaps in the essential knowledge, that ‘Core Principles’ are all very well but what, precisely do you as a coach fall back on when a particular skill proves beyond a child? Generic answers aren’t always viable.

I’m hoping the ECB have thought of this. But it may just be that they are choosing to let kids go searching.

 

@cricketmanwales is proud to work for @cricketwales. But these views are his only, right?