The Teesra

Category: coaching

  • Online coaching & coach education — can we do better?

    I followed the proliferation of “online coaching” during the first COVID lockdown in the UK in 2020 — a lot of online demos, and quite a few “Me-Me” posts (“look at me — me!”).

    For all the online “coaching”, it is, of course, impossible to tell if there was much actual learning. And no evidence, to date, of any development in online coaching beyond a straight replacement for face-to-face instruction & demonstration.

    Surely, we can do better?

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  • What makes a good “development” club?

    I posted earlier today on a proposal for an alternative development pathway for U13 cricket in England.

    In that post, I included a set of criteria for identifying a “good” club — good, in this context, meaning one that could be entrusted with leading a local development cluster at U13.

    The list originated in a discussion of a fictitious “Top 100 Clubs” feature article for one of the cricket magazines, to sit alongside their “Top 100 Schools” pieces.

    I left the list as a work-in-progress, but it is, perhaps, an interesting project it its own right.

    My initial list:

    • Retention — do players stay with the Club over time, or drift in and out again?
    • Accessibility & inclusion (both by ability & age — good clubs welcome late starters).
    • Diversity of players & coaches (contentious; needs to be context-sensitive; difficult to quantify).
    • Parental engagement (see above).
    • “Lived” coaching philosophy — do coaches “walk the walk”?
    • Outreach & recruitment (active or passive?).
    • Further down the list: games won — I do believe that winning matters!
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  • What are we going to do next? Thoughts on the new development pyramid at U13, post-ICEC.

    What are we going to do next? Thoughts on the new development pyramid at U13, post-ICEC.

    County Age Group coaches and pathway leaders should be tasked, as part of the State Schools Action Plan…, with delivering a positive State school cricket offering at the U10-U13 level.

    Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket — A Report by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, June 2023: Recommendation 41

    The intention behind this, as with all of the recommendations in the ICEC Report, being to reduce inequity in the game — in this instance, specifically targeting the under-representation of State school educated players in the professional game.

    This recommendation (shifting U13 CAG coaches from selective pathways into schools) sits alongside a wider feeling that U13 is too simply early to select (and de-select) players.

    Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket — A Report by the Independent Commission on Equity in Cricket, June 2023: Recommendation 40

    In the course of a lengthy conversation on this subject with fellow coaches on the future (on X-tter — it’s not entirely toxic on there), we were challenged to envisage what the new pyramid at U13 might look like.

    My attempt to answer this (modified a little since the original discussion), follows.

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