The Teesra

Category: Coach Development

  • WITTW vs. WIN — is winning the most important outcome, even for “high performance”?

    The ECB’s 2022 High Performance Review, led by Andrew Strauss, has attracted extensive scrutiny for the suggested new playing schedule for First Class and List A, but remarkably little for those elements of the Review that relate to creating a high performance culture away from match days i.e. coaching, pathway, player development.

    In amongst the less-discussed sections of the Review is a proposal to “embed…[What It Takes To Win] WITTW into the ECB coaching curriculum.”

    It certainly makes sense for coaches to help players to develop and deploy skillsets that contribute to winning.

    But I have concerns, ideological and practical, on the choice of WITTW as an appropriate model within cricket.

    Might we be better concentrating on What’s Important Now?

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  • Where did you learn about coaching?

    Over the summer, a Twitter correspondent asked me how I learnt about coaching.

    Fair question.

    I do (probably too often) post quite definitive statements to Twitter of what I believe to be the reality of coaching. I am happy to express an opinion on subjects “way above my pay grade”. Even when those “opinions” are dressed up as questions, it’s easy enough to spot what I think the answer should be.

    So what are my coaching qualifications?

    I have an old level 2 coaching badge (2011) and quite a lot of hours actually coaching.

    And I have so much CPD on my CV that I need to prepare an edited version, or it looks as if I spend my life on courses…

    But I’m not sure how much of what I believe about coaching has been learnt from gaining badges or formal (and informal) CPD, and how much has been shaped by prior experience at “the University of Life”.

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  • 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.

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