The Teesra

Author: Andrew Beaven

  • Coachability – is it a thing?

    Should we seek, or create, cricketers who are “coachable”? Can we even agree what we mean by “coachable”?

    I came across a fascinating article quoting  Brittney Reese, multiple World and Olympic Champion in the long jump, on the process of becoming a champion.

    A story from the 2013 World Championships was especially interesting.  Reese, at that time the reigning World Champion, had only just managed to qualify for the final.

    “…my coach told me to ‘stop acting like a girl, and just jump’.

    That night I went back, looked at the film and tried to figure out where I was going wrong.”

    This was presented as evidence of Reese’s “coachability”, but I’m not sure this really demonstrates “coachability”, not as I understand the term, at least. (more…)

  • Making sense of games with Principles of Play

    I have posted previously on my conversion to games-based learning, and on the challenges of designing games that are both “representative” (of the real game, and that therefore require the players to develop transferable cricket skills) but at the same time not so constrained and artificial as to no longer be fun to play (the “game” element is important, because we want the players to come back to it again and again). (more…)

  • “Running two” – a modified fielding practice that also develops batting stroke placement and decision making.

    Back in the summer, one of the teams I coached was having problems picking up singles and twos – their innings progressed by a succession of big hits and run outs – so we developed a game to practice shot placement and decision making.

    I called it “run 1, run 2”, because that is what I kept calling out to the batsmen, but you might come up with a better name!

    Try it, though – we found that the results were encouraging, and, as with many games, the tactical challenges were as interesting as the technical.

    (more…)