The Teesra

Blog

  • Who said that? A look at the future of coaching.

    “[the coach] didn’t grow players by nurturing individual talents, he created a regime.”

    “…coaches now are so controlling that they don’t allow players to go and express themselves…[young players] are not able to make decisions for themselves.”

    “The coach should prepare the team, then let the captain get on with it.”

    Recent quotes from England Test cricketers, all of them active over the last decade, all bemoaning the stifling impact of over-coaching.

    Is there a problem with cricket coaching, especially at the elite level?

    (more…)

  • Stefan – RIP

    This week we lost a young Club member who made an immense impact on his team mates in the short time he was with us.

    I have known Stefan (or “Frenchie”, as we called him; our first – and only – French-born cricketer) for 8 years, from when he joined the club as a cheeky member of the junior section.

    Stefan grew from the cheeky Colt to be a fine young man, a source of genuine human warmth and good humour, who could share a joke with his team mates or the opposition, who always played the game the right way – to win, yes, but not at any cost.

    I last played with him just 7 weeks’ ago, in our final League game of 2014. Stefan opened the batting and top scored for us; we could not quite find a way to win the game (our opponents might just as well say that we just managed to save the game)…good cricket, played in a great spirit. Most games with Stefan felt like that.

    The Club lost two senior members in the last year – players the Club has known for 40 or 50 years, who have played and served on Committees, had a beer or two in the bar, and grown (more or less gracefully) older with us.

    Men of whom it could truly be said “they had a good innings” (metaphorically, if not literally with the bat).

    The news of Stefan’s sudden passing, at just 20 years of age, has shocked and saddened everyone at the Club.  Stefan has left us all too soon.

    Keep smiling Frenchie. And ‘though you won’t be with us, we will keep smiling when we think of you.

    Stefan Premadasan – 1994-2014

  • We all like to play games…so why must practice be so dull?

    We all love playing games.  Or we wouldn’t spend our summer weekends on the cricket field, and our winter evenings in the nets.

    So why, when we practice, do we revert to formal instruction?  Left elbow high, alignment, 5 minutes with the bowling machine delivering leg stump half volleys to really groove that on drive.  Why don’t we play, more?

    If I am honest, one of my motivations for becoming a cricket coach was that I enjoy playing (cricket and most games). “Giving something back to the game” and earning a living are important drivers, but passing on the enjoyment of playing (and being able to play more games myself) is an important part of my self-motivation.

    Since qualifying, I have perhaps been inhibited by the need to demonstrate the value of structured coaching, to players, parents, even to myself. Which is why I am keen to follow the lead of the ECB Coach Education and introduce more cricket games-based learning (CGBL) to my sessions, with players young and old. (more…)