Coaching - at training

It is important when coaching a group of young players to have a training plan for each training session.

The training plan should seek to focus on problem or weak areas, whilst providing training in all aspects of cricket.  As a coach you will need to keep the players engaged - and to do that you will need to keep them active and involved, and it doesn't hurt to get their buy in first.

Buy in

Starting with the buy in, this can be obtained by having a quick chat after each match asking the players (not telling them, not asking or even involving the parents) what went well, what not so well, and what they think they need to work on at the next training session.  If you do that, and focus your next training session on the area the team has identified you will have your buy in, and much more willing and compliant group.

High involvement activities

When running training drills look at how each drill will function, how long each drill takes, and how many players will participate at the one time.  From this you can estimate the amount of interaction for each player - and that's important to manage if you want to keep them engaged.  Knowing the amount of interaction per player, you can look at adjusting the drill or the number of players participating so that a higher level of interaction is achieved.

Higher rates of involvement will lead to increased benefit from the training, a greater level of satisfaction, and better discipline.

For example:

One basic form of a catching drill is to have the players form a line.  A ball is tossed up and hit in the air for  the first player in the line, they catch or attempt to catch the ball and throw the ball back to the coach.

This will take on average six to ten seconds for each player.  With twelve players each player will get an opportunity to catch every 1.2 to 2 minutes, that's between 30 and 50 times in an hour or put another way a total of 5 minutes of active involvement in an hour of training.

This can be improved if you can have someone help catch the returned balls and feed them to you,  if you have more than one ball, and if you have an additional person to hit the balls.  There are limits to how much this form of a drill can be improved, just like there are limits to how much players can contend with.

A ratio of one trainer to three players or one trainer, one assistant and four players is probably the upper boundary for this type of a drill.

My suggestions

Break the training up into whole of team activities, group activities (3 to 6 players), and individual coaching.  The group activities can be done by dividing the team up into groups and each group performs the same drill or a circuit where either the drill or group rotates.  Individuals may then be taken from the group drills to work on specific skill areas or techniques.

Get some people to help so that you can run several group drills simultaneously - but don't get just anyone.

Vary the drills - don't stick with any drill for too long, don't always use the same drills.

Have a library of drills to draw on.  Make up some of your own, even bring some in from other sports - at the younger ages in junior cricket developing hand-eye coordination, and general coordination is a big part of the learning curve.

Don't be afraid to be unconventional - there's nothing wrong with grabbing a few footy or rugby balls and having the players pair off and run around the field passing the ball back and forth, or kicking the balls high up for them to catch.  The first achieves a degree of exercise and hand-eye coordination (and full involvement), while the second works on both hand-eye coordination and positioning for high catches.



At some point in the future this post will be split up into training plans and training drills and expanded on.  For now, these are just my thoughts as expressed to Millsy prior to his players arriving for their match.