“Great Bowlers and Fielders: Their Methods at a Glance” — 115 years old but still worth a look today?

In 1906, the photographer and former cricketer George Beldam and sportsman, politician, diplomat, academic, teacher, writer, editor and publisher (from his profile on Wikipedia!) C.B. Fry published “Great Bowlers and Fielders: Their Methods at a Glance” [1]), a collection of Beldam’s ground-breaking action photographs of bowlers (and fielders) of the Edwardian age with Fry’s commentary …

Introducing swing; what is “coaching”?

Interesting re-post from @ImSporticus, just before Christmas. It got me thinking about how I would coach someone to swing a cricket ball. And the programme I came up with included a bit of direct instruction, a lot self-guided discovery, maybe some feedback, a demo & a drill to scaffold learning. Rather more to it than …

WBBL thoughts (1) — what a final; what a wonderful advert for the game!

I have enjoyed watching the WBBL, on BT Sport, over the autumn. Mostly the highlights packages, but I did catch the 2nd semi-final live, and the final on Saturday. What a fantastic game of cricket. No, I don’t think the Stars batted especially badly, or that the pitch, or the ball, misbehaved. Yes, the new …