I have been coaching with the current ECB Coaches’ toolkit for nearly three years, now, since I was introduced to the components on the Coaching Children CPD workshops back in 2014.
I had a relatively quiet August – just 5 days’ active coaching over the last month – so I have had quite a bit of time to think about how I coach. It was interesting to see how many of the tools were in regular use, and how my own kit has changed over time.
In Coaching: a fabulous crisis, Rick Walton encapsulated the dilemma facing the batting coach today – in an era when “if the ball goes to the fence, anything goes”, what is the role of the coach?
Graham Gooch, in a coaching programme available to purchase via PitchVision, succinctly described the role of the batsman as being a run maker – ultimately, that’s all there is to it.
You don’t have to be stylish or technically “correct” (although elements of style or of a textbook technique might well emerge as long as they contribute to successful outcomes); you do have to score runs, ideally as quickly as conditions allow and the match situation demands.
So, for the batting coach – help the batters you work with to score runs.
Technical models help, if the player’s own technique lets her down; core principles (can) help to identify exactly what is going wrong.
But most important is to get the batter playing strokes and scoring runs.
If you haven’t yet read Rick’s post – start here!
The Teesra 