The Teesra

Category: cricket

  • Looking out for a hero – pick your role models

    When I am working with our Colts, I always try to illustrate a coaching point with examples from the First Class game.

    A lot of the boys try to hit the ball too hard, and fall over as they go for a big shot.  I try telling them to stand still, and to keep their balance.  But there can be few better examples of perfect balance at the batting crease than MS Dhoni, hitting the winning 6 in the final of the 2011 World Cup.  They have all seen the pictures, all seen the poise and the twirling bat.  And some of them are hitting the ball a lot more often, and more cleanly, now they follow Dhoni’s example.

    For straight lines when bowling – Dale Steyn.  Run straight towards the stumps; look straight ahead; follow through straight; bowl straight…it works!

    For absolute focus on the task in hand – Alastair Cook, every time he bats.

    And now I might have a new role model – Kevin Pietersen.  Not (this time) for the inventiveness in his stroke play, or confidence to back his own methods, but for his innings in the Mumbai test.

    Not just a great innings, but a great innings when it mattered, both to KP himself and to the England team.  Now if I could just encourage the Colts to follow KP’s example, and to find the commitment in themselves to perform at their best when their team needs them, I think I might be working with some even better young players. (more…)

  • On deadly ground, fight

    “On deadly ground, fight…Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape…and there is nothing they may not achieve.”  So wrote Sun Tzu, in his Art of War.

    That sounds like fighting talk…but what does a Chinese general, strategist and philosopher, writing some 2,500 years ago, have to say about cricket?

    I watched the second innings of an indoor game yesterday morning.  With little chance of defending a very low first innings total, the bowling side took the only approach open to them – to try to bowl the opposition out.  And they succeeded.

    OK.  Division 3 of a local indoor cricket competition is hardly Sun Tzu’s “deadly ground”, but with nothing to lose, they produced a performance as convincing as any I have seen.

    So perhaps there is something in this, for the future of “good cricket”.

    (more…)

  • Follow the leader

    As the England cricket team prepares for the test series against India, the spotlight falls inevitably on their new captain, Alastair Cook.  Largely untried as a leader at the highest level, general opinion seems to be in favour of Cook’s appointment.  Top batsman, good team player, resolute under pressure.

    Cook’s predecessor, Andrew Strauss, alongside coach Andy Flower, saw England take the no. 1  position in the ICC Test rankings  (a position subsequently lost to South Africa), so Cook has a tough act to follow.

    But what makes a leader?  In sport, or in business?

    There is a clue in the title – a leader needs to lead.  Sometimes from the front (opening the batting in a Test match; first into the office and last out); sometimes by offering advice and support; sometimes simply by providing the space for others to flourish.

    But a leader also needs to be followed.  And that can be the tricky part.

    (more…)