The Teesra

Month: May 2022

  • What coaching is, and what is is not. Thoughts on the ECB’s “Unleashing Potential”, and why we need to be careful what we wish for.

    We all know we are “coaches”, but what are we actually doing when we coach? Is what we do working? What is “good” coaching?

    Questions we all might have asked ourselves, at some point during our coaching careers.

    Idealistically, I’d look to help a player be the best version of him- or herself rather than achieving “best fit” to an “ideal” model, only changing something if it was likely to cause serious inconsistency or lead to potential injury.

    But realistically, I wonder if that might limit a young player’s access to development pathways, if they fail the “eye test” by not “looking right”?

    There certainly used to be tales of Test prospects having their bowling actions remodelled by well-meaning coaches, and subsequently being barely able to bowl at all. You don’t hear these stories any more…I wonder if a bowler with a non-standard action would survive the pathway with their idiosyncrasies intact (if they could even get taken into the system in the first place, that is).

    And this thought has been further challenged with the publication of a pair of documents by ECB Coach Development — Unleashing Potential, Men’s & Women’s Pathway. Talent and development frameworks for “pathway leaders and coaches” (so not for the likes of me, then…).

    Challenging, and informative of the thinking of “better” coaches, perhaps.

    But Unleashing Potential poses more questions than it answers.

    (more…)

  • Whole-Part-Whole — time for another look?

    Back in 2014 I posted a simple page describing the “Whole-Part-Whole” session plan — play a game (“Whole”), coach a specific skill component relevant to that game (“Part”), then play the game, or a conditioned version of the game, again (“Whole”, again).

    Just a description, filed under “coaching resources” alongside some more traditional session plans (level 2, back then, was billed as “learning to write plans”), with no attempt to explain why it might be useful.

    Recently, the page has started to generate some more views — nothing spectacular, but as many visits in the last 12 months as in the previous 7 years.

    So I thought it might be interesting to take another look at Whole-Part-Whole (WPW), and why I still think it is a useful framework for session planning.

    (more…)

  • Hit the reset button! Introducing learning opportunities (for batters) in games-based practice.

    I have been catching up with the winter programme of iCoachCricket Live, the webinar series for ECB Coaches Association members. Not all of the presentations resonate with me, but there are some nuggets amongst the chat.

    In the course of a discussion about the ECB CA’s new “Unleashing Potential” framework, there was some mention of how coaches might make better use of “games-based” practice by modifying the playing conditions to challenge the batters’ tactical (and technical) development.

    Of most interest (to me) was the concept of the “reset button” — if a pre-specified shot or tactic fails and the batter is dismissed, she can “press the reset” and have another go.

    (more…)