ECB Coaches Association links Coaching Insight 2019 | Page 36

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What is ‘player-centred’?
This restraint is a fabulous
challenge. At a time when half the
cricketing universe surely wants
to crowd in to Surrey CCC to
unpick the brilliant secrets of what
feels like a return to the absolute,
shouldn’t we be ditching some of
the new-fangled ‘generosity’ and
get back to drilling in timeless,
simple truths?
A good question, I think.
Surrey were superb in last year’s
County Championship and they
are openly trumpeting intensive
rehearsal of (and I think trust
in) the basics. Meaning playing
straight; being conscious of the
value of your wicket; having a
“sound technique”.
Sound technique, now there is a
question!
I appreciate that our friends
from the county champions
may well argue with some of
this interpretation – particularly
the third of those alluring sound
bites – but it seems to me a fairish
translation of what many cricket
people are thinking.
But does the stunning success of
Surrey at county level and beyond
have ramifications for coaches
and coach development broadly?
Quite possibly. And does it follow
then, that a return to basics
undermines arguments for
contemporary methods – which
might understandably be viewed