The Teesra

Category: coaching

  • “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 and analysis.

    In a series of staged images, Beldam and Fry gave a unique insight into how bowlers actually bowled (or thought they bowled [2]) in the 1900s.

    And I believe that there is a lot to be learned today from a closer analysis of Great Bowlers and Fielders (henceforth GBF) .

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  • What did the Scientific Revolution ever do for coaching?

    What did the Scientific Revolution ever do for coaching?

    This piece is slightly modified from a paper submitted to an online course on the scientific revolution of the 17th century. The article was an excursion into twin obsessions of mine — over-elaboration and an exploration of coaching pedagogy, explicitly, what works, and why.

    My conclusion was that the scientific revolution legitimised the question as a tool for learning. From observation (“what’s going on out there?”) to hypothesis (“is this what’s happening?”) via experiment (“is my hypothesis correct?”) and on to a new understanding (or another question).

    And that sounds rather like the model for coaching (and, more pertinently, learning) that I can subscribe to.

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  • Simple net game

    Here is a simple game to play in the nets, to encourage batters to do more than “just have a hit”.

    Each batter faces a round of bowling, one ball from each bowler.

    First round — “have a look” — batter is challenged to leave as many deliveries as possible (1 run) or, if he plays the ball, to play it with soft hands so the ball does not hit the net (also 1 run).

    Second round — acceleration — score 1 run for every ball that hits the net after bouncing.

    Third round — “get on with it” — 4 runs for hitting the ball back out of the net.

    Bowlers score 5 for every time they hit the stumps — if this unbalances the game too much in favour of bowlers, score 3 or 4 per wicket — the intention is to encourage bowlers to bowl as straight as possible, at all times, but the points are an added incentive to bowl properly.

    If the batters are padded up, face all 3 rounds, then have remainder of batting time; compare scores at the end of the net session.

    If using a soft ball and batters not padding up, rotate after each round and compare scores at the end of each phase.

    Inspired by “Going through the gears” by @ImSporticus, and conversations with @DavidHinchliffe about net practice.