Help!!! I'm now coaching kids cricket!

[Red Devil]

Right, so I wasn't sure where this fitted best so I've put it here as it's probably most likely to be seen.

My son has started at cricket club (he just turned 5 years old) and I volunteered to help if required. the coach is away this weekend and I'll be taking the coaching.

Short term - if anyone has any advice or tips that would be great, also any links to coaching docs that might be relevant would be good. To be honest I was going to concentrate on fielding and a bit of batting and do the bowling myself.

Longer term, if anyone has any advice on coaching courses or schemes that would be great!

I guess I should say I'm based in Buckinghamshire which is basically just outside the M25 in north west london territory.

Many thanks for any help

[ddb]

How old are the other kids? 5 is quite young to do much but hit a ball.

[Arthur Crabtree]

BBC site used to have coaching info, but don't know if it age appropriate.

[Alviro Patterson]

Lucky kids having Red Devil as coach, soon they will be learning how to peak at the right time in Fantasy League competitions

[meninblue]

I have done coaching for couple of seasons at club cricket so i do have some advice.

(1)I assume that you are coaching age group 5+. We coach such age group club cricketers with synthetic cricket balls as they are not as hard as season balls but at same time it makes their hands to get used to hardness of synthetic ones for future years in club cricket.

(2)When we coach the kids who are looking to enter the Mumbai U-19 squads, we stress that they bat long hours because in three day qualifiers they will have to bat long time to score 150+ or 200+ which is norm at those tournaments from the top scorers. Their nets are scheduled into two sessions per day, one in early morning and the other in evening. If the club cricketers you are coaching are not looking to make any state level tournament squads then you can arrange the usual one session per day.

(3)The nets should start on time to put punctuality into the club cricketers at young age. Do not wait for late comers. Commence the nets with some jogging, follow it with stretching exercises, making them run between cones, or place a ladder or such structure and make them hop into each ladder box and cross the ladder. In initial net sessions make them play only underarm. Then gradually ask them to throw the ball rather than bowling over arm. Give them knocking practice, Shadow batting. Show them how to stretch and bend while ensuring that back foot is not dragged up from the ground.

(4)How to grip the bat is the most basic step in coaching this age group. It makes lot of difference. Ensure that this is the first thing you coach to the kids as far as batting is concerned. Check the grip between their hands, the position of the hands.

(5)Fielding practice is best done with synthetic balls at this age group to begin with.

let me know the age group, i will contribute with other techniques and approach.

[yuppie]

Red, if the kids are young, make sure its fun, keep all involved and don't play favorites. Keep it simple, keep it moving, and put no pressure on the kids.

How many kids are there? Keep groups small, use other parents for help to oversea things.

If the kids are under 10, look at kanga cricket maybe, have done that with young kids in the past

http://www.sports.det.nsw.edu.au/sports ... _kanga.htm

Been a long time since i used to work in this field, but if you are enjoying it, then the kids will almost certainly be as well.

[Red Devil]

Thanks guys, I'm only starting with 5 year olds - maybe 6 year olds a bit.

I've already noticed that they tend to play the slog to cow corner - getting my son to play the ball on the off-side is proving challenging!

I'll take a look at the link from yuppie - I can't find anything on BBC. Did find that Bucks cricket have some courses but it looks like it'd be about £400 - not sure the club will go for that as ideally we want something that all of the youth coaches can do and there would be about 6 of us

[Gingerfinch]

Good luck Red. You must have lots of patience.

[braveneutral]

Most counties off in house training to become an ECB Level 1 coach. There is some cost normally attached but I didn't think if was that much. It also tends to be an evening a week for a few months or something like that.

[Making_Splinters]

From the sounds of things you'd be best suited looking at the Community coaching courses the ECB offer, most Counties have equivalents on offer too.

http://www.ecb.co.uk/development/coaching/community-coaching

Not going to be coaching this season after somewhat destroying my knee over the winter.

[meninblue]

There is nothing to be coached technically to kids aged 5 years. Ideally they should be coached at 10 years or so. None of those age bowlers wont be able to bowl even half pitch with the season ball as well.

[Dr Cricket]

Got to be serious here, no one should be coaching 5 year old.
Literally just let them play and have fun.
The only thing you can do is make and create lots of games which the kids enjoy.

[Red Devil]

I resorted to basically getting them used to fielding drills - throwing at the stumps, catching, chasing the ball. Then they took turns at batting and I did the 'bowling' while the other kids fielded.

I tried getting the kids to bowl but that didn't really work. What was interesting was that the other kids stood still and bowled underarm or overarm, but when i asked my boy to have a go at bowling he wandered off and i asked him where he was going so he said 'I'm bowling'! He came running in, managed to let go of the ball in the right place and with some speed - ran through the crease rather than stopping - and got the ball down pretty close to the stumps for a few balls in a row! That took me by surprise - just need to straighten that arm up now, cock that wrist and get a bit of a leap in at the crease and India's bowling worries may ease in a few years!

Interestingly, there was a girl who played good straight drives but missed the ball if you dropped it short, whereas the boys missed the ball when it was full but slogged to cow corner quite happily when you bowl short.

[sussexpob]

We used to take it in turns to coach the kid groups at our cricket club, it was really rewarding to be involved with, most are there for fun and well behaved because they are doing something they enjoy.

Essentially, we used to rotate different themes for practice, so at the start of every session you introduce them to a small but fundamental technical element that they focus on. As an example one might be the importance of watching the ball, how to stand, how to catch...nothing heavy. As you have noticed, most of them plant front foot and swing to leg side, so in essence you embrace that by teaching them how to connect with the ball. At that age, all they want to do is smash it, that is a victory if they get caught out 10 meters away from the stumps because they hit it that far.

At the end of them practicing a few drills with the focus element (so if its catching, they just throw balls at each other to catch, etc) they play a game where we put them inside the hall, and the coach would send some underarm throw downs with a wicket setup behind, and mats positioned upright around the outfield within sensible hitting distances. Each mat they hit scored different points, which were positioned in a way that made the cow slog the least profitable, and encouraged them to think how they could position themselves or their bat to find better results. All the other kids fielded, and if someone survived more than 2 overs they were retired to make sure those that inevitably missed the ball and got out had some time to play too.

They seemed to enjoy it, and they seem at that age to really respect you in the belief that you are Ricky Ponting or something.

I would say the most important thing is, make it fun, make it inclusive, but do attempt to teach them something that they can learn from and take away. As stated above, they seem to respect and listen to you, so whatever you say they will take note of.

[Red Devil]

Thanks for the advice SP - I will take note.

I had a breakthrough with my son this week - Thursday i was working from home so i switched off the PC at 5.30isha nd we spent some time playing cricket in the garden. I asked him to only hit the ball on the off-side and it seemed to work pretty well after a bit of work on stance and bat positioning. He drilled quite a few through the off-side, however his first instinct is still the hoick to leg, but there was definite promise - also I think he was quite excited once he realised he could hit the ball pretty far playing straight or on the off-side as well.

Tomorrow morning I'll see if I can get the other kids doing the same