After the Christmas break I was very excited to get back to coaching at the Ceylon Cricket Academy, as I was being to get more freedom in my coaching and more of my ideas were being implemented. Thursdays nights were a chance for me to be able to get some practical coaching done. At this point I had just started another cricket coaching job working with Pro Coach Yorkshire which gave me the opportunity to see very high level coaches and what they did differently in the ways of games, drills and these sorts of things. This opened my eyes to the freedom I had as a coach, I felt I was starting to be able to bring this freedom and use of experimenting into my coaching at the Ceylon cricket academy.
At this session we were supposed to have had 3 coaches to coach the elite squad. However the main coach was delayed and would be an hour late. This meant there was me, and the Pro for the session. Furthermore more the head coach had all the coaching equipment with him so all we had were the stumps, some balls and some cones.
At the starts of the session one of the participants came up to me and asked if I could work 1 v 1 with him on his wicket keeping, and more specifically his catching nicks, or edges off spin bowling. This wouldn’t usually have been a problem as I would have brought out the catching ramp which is a piece of equipment used to simulate diverting catches. However without this I had to adapt and create. I began with a rather simple set up and had the participant stood behind the stumps as if he were keeping to spin. I was about 5 meters in-front of him and on one knee. I started with under arm feeds on the full to get him moving his feet and trying to remain low, I then changed it to over arm feeds with spin on to try simulate spin bowler. I began reflecting in action, thinking to myself what can I do to improve this. I thought back to the CPPRF (Muir et al, 2011). To which I thought I had to make this varied rather than blocked, in order to get the best results and learning.
I then laid down cones on random lengths and line both upside down and normal. I walked back a bit further and began to throw spin again. This time a lot could happed as it could divert off the cones, spin off the ground and so on. Another reason for doing this was the fact that it would make sounds when flicking the cones, so not only would it divert like a edge but also make the sound to try and simulate as much as I could a game scenario. I also adjusted my feeds whether they were flatter and faster, or slower with more flight or even where I threw them from in the crease this was all to simulate the likes of a bowler in a game. this was all going very well and I the participant was enjoying the challenges I presented him with. But I wanted to do more. I raided a cupboard I was able to find two planks of wood. I place these down with in the net alongside the randomly placed cones. My thought for this was that the wood would simulate different pitch conditions. For example the ball may have skid on, kept low or jumped up. It was also another way the ball would divert swell if it took the edge.
Through this I was constantly asking the participants on what he thought and asking questions why I was doing what I was and ensuring he was keeping his technique. As I used a variety of different practice structures and moved from blocked which is good for learning a new skill but not great for skill retention. I then moved it to more of a varied/random approach. Then changed it to where the participant was exposed to ‘game-like’ pressures and research backs up that my participant would of retained the skill much better (Shea and Morgan 1979).
I really enjoyed this session and it was different to what I would usually do, but it was great to be able to try things out and be able to benefit the player. I find at this age wicketkeeping is often overlooked and a lot of the practice is done by themselves, this way I was able to directly assist him. He also asked if we could continue doing the one to one stuff every now and again on his wicketkeeping which was a good boost for my confidence in my coaching ability.
References
Shea, J.B. and Morgan, R.L., 1979. Contextual interference effects on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of a motor skill. Journal of Experimental psychology: Human Learning and memory, 5(2), p.179.
Muir, B., Morgan, G., Abraham, A., & Morley, D. (2011). Developmentally Appropriate Approaches to Coaching Children. In I. STAFFORD (Ed.), Coaching Children in Sport. Routledge.
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