The Teesra

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  • Belonging — at the very heart of “inclusion” and “diversity”, surely?

    Cricket in England* is facing an existential crisis of a series of racism scandals and widespread criticism for the lack of diversity across the game.

    There has been a lot wrong with the game, but hopefully some good will come out of the reviews and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) initiatives.

    But there surely needs to be more to EDI than statements of intent, and training, and disciplinary sanctions. A former coaching colleague, Ollie Rae, made what I thought was a very perceptive observation.

    You can not have inclusion and diversity without people feeling like they belong.

    https://twitter.com/ollierae14/status/1504752485218590722?s=21&t=CHGvpdo14rHnC4Rmsauqow

    What does “belonging” mean? What could a cricket club (the wider game) do to encourage those “outside cricket” to come inside?

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  • Pedagogy & philosophy — ECB National Programmes getting it right

    This post relates to the National Programmes prior to 2022. Changes to the training programmes for Activators in 2023 and 2024 have rather changed my opinion.

    In a recent post I mentioned how, in my opinion, the ECB’s National Programmes have more to say about learning to play (by playing “games” to learn; repetition without repetition) and player behaviours (the multi-ability model, developed in collaboration with Create Development) than the mainstream coaching programmes.

    I ran All Stars sessions for three years, pre-lockdown, and have delivered training for National Programmes Activators for a couple of years, now, and the more I see the more I am convinced by the underlying pedagogy and philosophy of the National Programmes.

    Pedagogy — the method and practice of teaching

    Philosophy — a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour

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  • What coaching is, and what is is not. Thoughts on the ECB’s “Unleashing Potential”, and why we need to be careful what we wish for.

    We all know we are “coaches”, but what are we actually doing when we coach? Is what we do working? What is “good” coaching?

    Questions we all might have asked ourselves, at some point during our coaching careers.

    Idealistically, I’d look to help a player be the best version of him- or herself rather than achieving “best fit” to an “ideal” model, only changing something if it was likely to cause serious inconsistency or lead to potential injury.

    But realistically, I wonder if that might limit a young player’s access to development pathways, if they fail the “eye test” by not “looking right”?

    There certainly used to be tales of Test prospects having their bowling actions remodelled by well-meaning coaches, and subsequently being barely able to bowl at all. You don’t hear these stories any more…I wonder if a bowler with a non-standard action would survive the pathway with their idiosyncrasies intact (if they could even get taken into the system in the first place, that is).

    And this thought has been further challenged with the publication of a pair of documents by ECB Coach Development — Unleashing Potential, Men’s & Women’s Pathway. Talent and development frameworks for “pathway leaders and coaches” (so not for the likes of me, then…).

    Challenging, and informative of the thinking of “better” coaches, perhaps.

    But Unleashing Potential poses more questions than it answers.

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