The Teesra

Category: Games based learning

cricket games-based learning

  • Jail-break cricket v1.1 – dynamic zones

    Quick update on jail-break cricket – try moving the JBZ during the game.

    • To challenge shot selection
    • To differentiate a session (hit a more or less accessible target).

    This can be done manually (pick up the markers designating the JBZ and quickly move them somewhere else…get the youngest, fittest coach to do this, not the oldest…), or by setting out multiple zones and calling out “straight hit” or “mid-wicket”, as appropriate, before the next ball is delivered.

    This could probably work with YPA, as well as the original, coach-fed version of jail-break.

    Thanks to Simon Stevens for this idea.

  • A Constraint-Led Approach – a new addition to the coaching toolkit?

    I am (I call myself) a cricket coach – I work with people who want to play “better” cricket, however “better” might be defined.

    In that role, I try to help players to develop their playing techniques, and, along the way, to build individual motivation and resilience.  Occasionally, I will talk with them about (appropriate) physical development – play other sports to develop all-round physicality; don’t build so much muscle in the gym that you lose flexibility.

    But I am also interested in how to become a better coach, which has led me to follow a range of conversations and blogs on coaching pedagogy.

    I am not going to pretend that I understand the concept of nonlinear pedagogy (yet), and my exploration of socio cultural constraints within coaching probably missed any number of (academic) points.

    But a series of posts (including this, and this, both from ConnectedCoaches.org) on applying the Constraint-Led Approach (CLA) in coaching has piqued my interest.  Coaches are encouraged to modify the drill or game to force the player(s) to develop enhanced responses.

    (more…)

  • Adapting jail-break cricket for YPA

    On Saturday I attended an ECB CPD workshop, Training & Interventions for Young People & Adults (YPA).

    As part of the workshop, we each had to devise a training intervention.  I came up with this – derived from the jail-break cricket game.

    For a group of U17s, moving from 20 over to 40 over (or longer) format; challenged by the need to bat for longer periods of time without sacrificing scoring opportunities.

    Batting in pairs, batters have a limited number of “lives”; lose them all, and the innings is over; gain more lives by hitting the ball to a designated target zone (analogous to the JBZ). (more…)