Build a Backroom Staff for Your Team on a Tight Budget
Modern professional cricket teams have a support team of analysts and specialists that the average side can only dream about.
Except, if you build it right, you can have a team that helps your side become the best they can be. And you don’t need to pay a bean in salary.
If you can build a diverse group of people with different levels of experience and success, you’ll be 100% more likely to score more runs, take more wickets and win more games.
After all, it’s been said you are a combination of the people you spend most time with. A cricket team is no different.
Ignore the traditional roles, strength coaches and analysts need paying unless you are lucky enough to have one volunteer.
Instead, make space for these 4 crucial support people in your club
The Old Head
Every club has the former player who has had success at the level you play. They have seen situations and got through them. They have done things wrong and learned from them. This experience is invaluable and they should be involved in the planning of the team. They make a great Team Manager or Coach.
This may be you (as you are reading this article), but the tragic is the person who cares “too much”. They have a passion for learning and working out new ways to get the edge. They have at least one PitchVision Academy online cricket coaching course. It may be fitness, tactical, technical or all of the above.
Take time to listen to this person’s ideas, they are usually based in sound common sense. Imagine how good it would be if they came off. They would be perfect reporting to the coach on new methods.
The best way to get better is to teach skills to someone else. You don’t have to be an expert yourself. You just need to be better or more experienced than a youngster. That’s why as many 1st team players as possible should be encouraged to coach (formally or informally). Even if you have limited skill, you can pass on some gems and learn a little more about your own game.
This is the guy in the trenches with you, at the same level; struggling with the same things. When you are out third ball, this person knows exactly how you feel. The great thing about connecting with others in your situation is that you can share your cricketing problems (Even if you can’t solve them).
None of these roles need to be formalised, although we have discussed a formal buddy system in the past, and every club should at least look for a coach who can build an effective team on limited resources. Knowledge can be developed through online learning.
You just need a strong leader - perhaps the captain, perhaps the President or Chairman, or perhaps the coach and you can have a support network that other teams envy as they are being thrashed again.
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Comments
Yeah, we have the skipper - who leads from the front and calls the shots on the field, the coach - who advises the skipper of possible tactical plans and works with each player individually on their game - and the cheerleader - whose job it is to keep the energy up in the field.
We are definitely stronger as a unit when all three are present. For example, as coach, I hate having to step up when the skipper is away because all the nitty gritty things like counting how many overs X has to bowl distracts me from the things I would be normally doing like analysing the batsman and thinking of field settings or talking to a young player about his plan for building an innings etc.
We also have a couple of old heads - ex club captains, who are usually sought out for advice in the tea and drinks breaks and often give a different perspective on things.