Observations on Batting Techniques, Coaching & Fitness

coincidence that Auckland Cricket’s Women’sDevelopment Coordinator Maia Lewis hashad a lot to do with it and should take a hugepat on the back for this as she has beenable to put time into this area with a ‘handson approach’ rather than having numerouscontracted people to do ‘bits and bobs’.The Hearts in Wayne Mackey’s secondyear finished the season a respectable 3rdin the State League and can be proud oftheir season after they had beaten eventualfinalists Central Districts in both of theirround-robin games. Still in rebuilding phasethe team was ably led by new captain IngridCronin-Knight, and she led not only withcaptaincy but also with her batting. Thepositive development of the young playerswas recognised by New Zealand Cricketselection panel when Ingrid Cronin-Knightand Ros Kember were selected for the WhiteFerns and adding to this, Ingrid Cronin-Knight(Captain.), Prashilla Mistry, Saskia Bullen,Megan Murphy and Katie Perkins beingselected for the NZ Women’s ‘A’ team.The Women’s Development team had anoutstanding tournament only to be undone inthe final by Canterbury and thereby finishingin their own eyes a disappointing 2nd. Thesuccess of this team can be pointed at withoutdoubt to the coaching of Maia Lewis whoas coach gelled the team together reallywell and got the best out of the players. In atournament where they dominated, the lastday ‘jitters’ certainly got the better of them,however, a number of ‘young’ players wouldhave taken a lot out of this tournament andthat’s good news for the future!The Secondary Schoolgirls’ teams (Elite andDevelopment) travelled to Wellington andback by van, an ordeal in itself to take on aWellington team and a Hawke’s Bay teamplaying 50 over as well as Twenty20 games.Young coaches Sarah Hopkins and JussaraBierman respectively coached the teamsand both can be extremely happy with theirteams for differing reasons. Sarah’s Eliteteam went through the tournament unbeatenand Jussara’s Development team notched upa couple of good wins which was satisfyingconsidering the team had a number ofyounger players.The girls’ U14 teams partook in a tournamentin Auckland comprising of a team each fromWellington and Northern Districts. Aucklandput in an Elite team and then had producedseven other players for a composite team thatwas completed with players from Northland.The results for this tournament were verymuch alike their older counterparts where theElite team coached by Anthony Bowler wentthrough the tournament unbeaten and wereclearly streets ahead of all the others. Thecomposite team also managed a couple ofwins and credit must be given to their youngcoach Katie Perkins who was playing at thissame tournament only four years ago!SummaryWe are finding more and more in the ‘instant’society we live in that cricketers are nowexpecting to play at a high level with as littleamount of hard work as possible. Matt Horneis a huge advocate of this problem and we aregrappling with ideas on getting the messageacross to cricketers at all age group levelsincluding first class players the amount ofhard work and quality practice each individualmust do to succeed, gone are the days whentraining twice a week with your team willsuffice, thereby if players want to succeedthey must make sacrifices and ensure copiousamounts of extra work outside of their teamtrainings must be taken to ensure success.A number of us ‘older’ cricketers take forgranted that cricketers of this age ‘know’the game but lets not be fooled asthe ‘instant society’ ensures thereis plenty going on that will detractthe players from finding outabout the game, whether thatbe the history, on field gameawareness, skill developmentand understanding, therebywe as coaches in our positionmust design programmesthat integrate the learningmentioned earlier within allthe cricket specific skills weteach.With the loss of class pacebowlers (Adams, Tuffey,Mills, Martin) either forshort-term or long-term forvarying reasons Auckland hasnow got to concentrate ondiscovering and nurturing pacebowlers in a very short period of timeand therefore priority must be given tothis area.