The Teesra

Category: coaching

  • “Don’ts for Cricketers” – on preparing to play the ball

    Don’t forget to stand still, or you will never make a player. It is a good plan for a young player to have his right leg pegged down if he cannot naturally stand still.

    Here’s one I can’t agree with. Head still, eyes level, perhaps, but I don’t think we can be so dogmatic, anymore. A consistent trigger movement is fine, so long as the batsman can watch the ball at release and is able to make appropriate movements to play the ball.

    As to the “good plan”…

    Of course, back play was not encouraged back in the day! And I have, on occasion, resorted to placing a space-marker (cone) behind a batsman’s back foot, as a physical reminder to the player not to move that foot away to the leg side. But pegging the leg down seems extreme!

  • “Don’ts for Cricketers” – on genius

    Don’t expect genius to trouble itself with rules. No human law need concern the genius: he is a law to himself, and looks down from a lofty eminence on his weaker brethren.

    One that needs to be taken with a little caution – the “genius” first needs to deliver positive outcomes (modern jargon!), and can only rarely afford to disregard the rest of the team.

    But when a player displays “genius”, she needs to be encouraged, not repressed.

  • “Don’ts for Cricketers” – on style

    Don’t strive to bat in an “elegant” or “pretty” fashion for its own sake. That which comes natural to you as a batsman is the style to follow.

    Remarkably modern advice for the player, especially if you replace  the words “elegant” or “pretty” with “text-book” or “orthodox”! The absolute necessity for a player to find out what works for him or her is now being re-discovered, as it was back in 1906 by the author of “Don’ts…”

    And there is similar advice for the coach –

    Don’t interfere with the powers of nature: all coaching tends at first to eradicate individual peculiarities and to cramp a natural style.