Cricket coaching needs to be restructured

OPINION: A fortnight ago in this column I raised some questions about the current state of the Southland Cricket Association and commented on a lack of players from the province reaching first-class honours, writes Logan Savory in this week's Sav's Say.

I'll be honest with you, the feedback to the column was overwhelming.

Not everyone agreed with the comments and some voiced their own opinions on where improvements could be made.

The views all differed but the response impressed me because it shows there is still a lot of passion for the sport in this province.

Some suggested I was leaning too much towards the negative side when commenting on the low number of quality cricketers coming out of Southland.

However, the fact of the matter is I don't want to be sitting here in front of my keyboard at The Southland Times sports office and poking a stick in the direction of Southland cricket officials.

I, just as much as anyone, want to see the sport in this province boom.

I've played at Hawke Cup level for Southland and had have turned out in the Southland senior club cricket competition for the past 14 years.

As I've mentioned before, I have met many of my best mates through playing cricket in Southland so it is obvious it is a sport that is close to my heart.

But my job as the cricket writer at The Southland Times is to dish up my honest views on what is happening in the cricket scene and my honest view at the moment is we are slipping in some areas.

It is easy for us sports writers to throw stones at officials from a distance without coming up with possible solutions, so here is my take on what I believe could be looked at to make improvements on the player development front.

Often, sporting organisations employ coaches who head around the schools to work with kids.

That person spends an hour or so at one school before heading to another school and then yet another school.

They become glorified babysitters for short periods of time without actually having an impact on certain batting or bowling techniques.

My view is somehow there needs to be some restructuring done to provide a coach who is dedicated to working on a one-on-one basis with our top 10 per cent of cricketers aged between 13 and 20.

For me, better results will come if there is more emphasis on high performance rather attempting to scale the mountain that is coaching every kid in Southland for a short period of time.

There are other ways to promote cricket in schools than sending a person there to coach every now and then.

Working hard with that elite 10 per cent of youngsters' I would suggest would create better results for Southland at Hawke Cup level and hopefully would also see more first-class cricketers come out of the province.

We are in a situation at the moment where Southland has a flash complex at Queens Park which includes a top rate coaching suite with a state-of-the-art video analysis programme.

The upgrade to Queens Park has resulted in Invercargill hosting a lot more first-class cricket fixtures in recent years than it once did.

However, I just wonder if the resources at the Southland Cricket Association headquarters have been stretched too thin because of it.

The pavilion has been rebuilt. Now lets try build some quality players.

» Logan Savory is a former Southland cricket representative who was named New Zealand junior sportswriter of the year at the 2007 TP McLean journalism awards. His main rounds are cricket and rugby.

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