Batting Sport
Setting up the wickets. Taken by the author
In the beginning of DP 2 Anuda, Arnav, and I proposed an after-school activity as a ‘cricket club’ which then was named as ‘batting sport’. After planning the ASA, communicating with Dr. Leigh as our supervisor, and deciding the location we began this after school activity from the 2nd quarter. This activity was open for students from middle and high school in which most middle school boys joined our activity. Our aim from ‘batting sport’ was not just teach students how to play cricket but also to spend time among our self with cricket which none of us had played for the past years at OSC. This activity wasn’t competitive by which we only played games and sometimes did some catching and batting practice. Among the students we had most of them have never played cricket before but have played baseball so I thought it would be interesting to see how baseball techniques overlap with cricket.
In the past weeks we have accomplished 3 successful days with cricket, which is held only on Fridays, in which I have developed my coaching skills to the middle school students. Unfortunately, we had to organize this ASA in the primary playground due to track and field on the big field but I think the small field gave me a chance to develop my cricket skills further because on the big field it’s easier to play because we can take long shots however on the small filed with regulations of not hitting out of the field gave me a chance to develop my defensive shots in cricket. Since the members were middle school students, this field fits perfectly for them, it would be inefficient if we had high school students.
Anuda Batting. Taken by author
Since the activity is known as ‘batting sport’ our initial plan was to play one session cricket and the other softball. The first lesson we played cricket and in the next one we tried baseball which was quite unsuccessful because of the low space and less students. Every shot was going beyond the filed boundaries and there were insufficient number of students to cover all the bases and field. Therefore we (as a whole ASA members) decided to postpone baseball and solely focus on cricket. Last session we played cricket again in which we played a full game. There were many challenges with spacing but to overcome that we decided on some new rules to be applied in cricket which demonstrates our skills and working collaboratively.
Arnav fielding. Taking by author
I think we made a correct decision to have this after-school activity on a Friday after-school because I think it’s a great activity after a rigorous week of school. This activity can be further expanded if we start playing with different modes of cricket such as test matches, OneDay, etc. by which we can further learn and teach about cricket. In our future lessons after the winter break, I think we should make some changes with the game plays and begin practicing for rather than playing games.