For my CAS project, I decided that I would assist Mr. Poulus in coaching the Cricket ASA. I decided to embark on this project following an intense brainstorming session where I came up with a multitude of potential ideas. I chose this option because cricket is one of my biggest passions and as I was the most experienced student member of the ASA, I wanted to be able to share the knowledge that I have gained after many years of playing the sport. I decided that this project would take place over the 3rd ASA block which was from 13th February to the 7th of April and I would focus on strengthening 3 aspects that I thought were essential to the game: fielding, batting and bowling, and “gamesense”.

 

 

Fielding

Fielding is potentially the most important feature of cricket because as the saying goes “catches win matches”. When I first introduced the ASA players to leather ball fielding the level of proficiency that was demonstrated was not great. I noted three problems that were affecting my players’ performances:

1. Being scared of the ball
2. Poor hand-eye coordination
3. Slow reflexes

I was not too worried about addressing the 1st problem as based off experience, I knew that all it took to sort this issue was time and exposure to the leather ball. I knew that the 2nd problem would also be addressed during batting drills and decided to target this later. The 3rd problem, however, was something that I knew could be fixed. I used the fielding exercise of “slip catching”, a series of quick catches designed to specifically improve my player’s reflexes. I also purposefully gave my players challenging catches to test their agility and braveness. I made sure to praise the players who took catches and gently criticize the players who dropped catches as I knew that this would serve as motivation for them to take every opportunity that they could get.

 

 

I dedicated 1 hour for fielding each week for 4 weeks and by the end of this focused plan, I was delighted to see the improvements that many players had made. Everyone was now showing a previously undiscovered fearlessness for the hard leather ball as well as great determination and grit to hold on to every catch that they received. I was now able to test their ability with difficult high catches as well as close range faster catches and was impressed to see the visible increase in skill.

 

 

Batting and Bowling

I then decided to focus on the batting and bowling abilities of my players. As many of them had played softball cricket before, I noticed that these two aspects of the game came much easier to them. I first observed their progress with a tennis ball in the nets and once I deemed that this was satisfactory, I moved onto teaching them how to bowl/bat against a leather ball.

 

 

This deemed a slightly harder challenge as even though everyone was beyond excited to get a chance to bowl with the leather ball, not everyone was as happy to face the leather ball in the nets. I initially decided to give everyone a chance to bowl at someone experienced which is why I was the first to pad up and get in the nets. While everybody was fairly accurate with their bowling, the mixture of matting on cement proved a deadly combination and the unexpected bounce was extremely difficult for a fairly experienced player like myself to play against. As many of my players had not even picked up a leather ball bat before, I decided that I would give them limited time in the nets and that I would bowl very slowly to them to ensure that there were no injuries.

 

 

Game Sense

On the 7th of April, my last session with everyone, I decided that I would combine all of these aspects of the game to play a match. With an official target to defend/reach and an aim to gain wickets while bowling, I knew that this would motivate my players and teach them a thing or two about high stakes situations. Unfortunately while we usually had around 8-10 people, only 4 members including myself turned up and I knew that we could not have a match complete with fielding with solely 4 players. Therefore, I adjusted to this situation and decided to play a “match” in the nets with myself giving the players an imaginary field setup which they had to play against.

 

 

Overall, I believe that my CAS project was a great success. I was able to enjoy one of my passions and it was extremely fruitful to see people improving because of tips and improvements that you gave them while coaching.

 

 

Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process: Planning was extremely challenging. I had to adjust last minute to make up for people who were absent and other external factors, therefore, I learnt the valuable skill of “adjusting to the situation”.

Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience: All of the exercises which I conducted were completely planned by me. I experimented with certain aspects while planning and was glad to see that it payed off.

Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively: Cricket is a team sport. I tried to emphasize this collaborativity as much as possible during our sessions and all of the activities that I conducted were designed to improve team cohesion.