Development of junior batsmen

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Top batsmen over last 5 years.png


Contrarian viewpoint: here are batting records against non-Afghanistan/Bangladesh/Zimbabwe sides over the last 5 years (excludes those who played <10 matches).

Australia's got 4 of the top 10, more than any other country. There is also only one Indian (Kohli) averaging above 45, outdone by most other major countries. I know that a series was just lost but I doubt these conversations would be had in earnest if Smith and Warner were scoring on average an additional 250 runs per game over two innings. Ultimately am still confident that Australia's systems will produce the world class batsmen that dominate the top of these charts for years to come.

And yes this implies Usman Khawaja is a top 10 batsman in world cricket (at least by batting average), particularly when you take out McCullum and Sangakkara
 
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to1994

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Whilst I agree this is good in theory for developing professional unlimited-overs batsmen, I wonder how many Australian kids would be willing to play cricket under these circumstances (and how many of their parents would be keen to support them).

Participation rates matter a lot more than people in this thread seem to think. Talent can't emerge and develop if there's nobody to play with.

Exactly. You get the feeling Cricket Australia might have given up on participation rates for long form cricket and instead are just going down the road of head hunting very young players early and investing everything into those few players with the intention of them and pretty much only them playing at the highest level.

Shield Cricket these days just seems like practice games for these guys to get experience before they make the next step up instead of a high intensity competition where everyone is a chance at a place if they do well.
 

BRWB

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Not sure if raised but my kids played under 12s last season and didnt want to play again.

We didnt like the partnership model where one kid could hog the strike having unlimited outs while the other kid ends up facing a handful of balls in their four over allotment. The old model was a max of 20 balls but you were out when you were out.

We also I didnt like the use of what was a apparently a CV mandated rubberised high bounce ball. Bizarre ball selection. Little kids toss the ball higher to make the distance meaning even off a good length the ball was mainly above waist and around shoulder height. Surely a low bounce ball would be better. Literally the only effective scoring shot was the pull or slog.to cow corner.

All of my front foot coaching for fwd defence and driving seemed wasted.

Another issue was the the coaching and participation model. I took an eleven year old boy aside who was frustrated. Tried him with slow underarms from a couple of metres away - couldnt hit those. Tried him with a stationary ball to step out and he actually missed that the first.few.times until I adjusted his grip and technique. His carching and bowling was.just as.bad.




Why was that kid playing competition? Why was he so bad after nearly a season of coaching?

As far as I could see.the current model teaches:

- kids not to value their wicket by giving unlimited outs
- high bounce balls promote hitting across the line and removing the need to play basic fwd defense.

Sound familiar problems??
 

TigerCraig

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Not sure if raised but my kids played under 12s last season and didnt want to play again.

We didnt like the partnership model where one kid could hog the strike having unlimited outs while the other kid ends up facing a handful of balls in their four over allotment. The old model was a max of 20 balls but you were out when you were out.

We also I didnt like the use of what was a apparently a CV mandated rubberised high bounce ball. Bizarre ball selection. Little kids toss the ball higher to make the distance meaning even off a good length the ball was mainly above waist and around shoulder height. Surely a low bounce ball would be better. Literally the only effective scoring shot was the pull or slog.to cow corner.

All of my front foot coaching for fwd defence and driving seemed wasted.

When my son played 4 over partnership cricket (about 10 years ago) the batsmen swapped ends if one got out, not sure if they still do

I'd like to see a few out of the box ideas for young age groups - say 4's inside the V worth 6 or 8, or 6's only worth 2 - so there is less incentive to hit in the air and slog.

I currently captain my club's 3rds which is a development team. Couple of old timers, couple of 18 year olds and a bunch of 13/14 year olds. These kids hate Saturday morning cricket. They only play it because they have to so they can play reps on a Sunday (which is only a 5 or 6 game season). There are a couple of very promising kids who just are bored playing hit & giggle juniors.
 
When I started playing at eight the rules were no different to normal cricket except you had to retire at 30, not a problem I was often faced with. You played on a twenty yard pitch with a hard ball, learned to develop your game that way and also if the ball hits you it hurts. The other things were taught very early on was the front and back defense shots and we were told that every shot was a variation of those two strokes. Watching the kids play cricket at the lunch break now can be a little disheartening although it's always good to spot the kids that you can see have genuine talent.
 
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Evey league is probably different but our under 12s have the following rules
- 9 per side
- each kid faces same amount of balls regardless of whether they go out
- each kid bowls same amount of overs
- each team has 18 overs (108 balls) so assuming team has 9 players each kid faces 12 balls and bowls 2 overs with a couple bowling 3 as wicket keeper doesn’t bowl.
 

TigerCraig

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Evey league is probably different but our under 12s have the following rules
- 9 per side
- each kid faces same amount of balls regardless of whether they go out
- each kid bowls same amount of overs
- each team has 18 overs (108 balls) so assuming team has 9 players each kid faces 12 balls and bowls 2 overs with a couple bowling 3 as wicket keeper doesn’t bowl.

No offence, but that seems very basic for Under 12 - more like something 10's would play
 
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No offence, but that seems very basic for Under 12 - more like something 10's would play

You are probably right as a lot of the better top age kids don’t bother playing under 12s they just play under 14s which r normal cricket with a 50/50 split of T20s and 40 over games. T20s were introduced this year with some backlash but everyone seems
To be used to it now
 

Kappa

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Evey league is probably different but our under 12s have the following rules
- 9 per side
- each kid faces same amount of balls regardless of whether they go out
- each kid bowls same amount of overs
- each team has 18 overs (108 balls) so assuming team has 9 players each kid faces 12 balls and bowls 2 overs with a couple bowling 3 as wicket keeper doesn’t bowl.

Can't imagine any competitive kids wanting to play that nonsense, especially at 11/12 years old.
 

VirgilHilts

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Just about the only variation we played when I was a kid was to have 15 x 8 ball overs (instead of 20 x 6) for the midweek matches, and even that was to save a bit of time in the evenings. And then the best of the juniors played in the adult teams at the weekend. I was playing against men from the age of about 14 or 15 and while it does mean some punishment at first it stands you in good stead. Going back to playing youth cricket midweek was a piece of piss after that.

Just frikkin play the game. Play it enough and it'll teach you what you need to know; if there are still gaps in your knowledge that's what coaches and senior players are for.
 

Caesar

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Can't imagine any competitive kids wanting to play that nonsense, especially at 11/12 years old.
The problem is that without such rules, a large number of players face a handful of balls before getting dismissed and standing around in the sun for the rest of the day. Then next summer they go play tennis or basketball or something.

It's not a problem with an easy solution.
 

TigerCraig

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The problem is that without such rules, a large number of players face a handful of balls before getting dismissed and standing around in the sun for the rest of the day. Then next summer they go play tennis or basketball or something.

It's not a problem with an easy solution.

Like I said before, 2 or more divisions
 
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Strikers miss club games to mingle

Article is pay walled sorry

At the end of yet another horror week, Australian cricket might have saved the worst for last.

Not content with pulling bowlers out of games to rest their overworked backs, cricket administrators are now spelling them so they can sign autographs, meet sponsors and press fan flesh.

Emerging Redbacks’ and Strikers’ fast bowler David Grant was not allowed to play in a T20 for his grade club Kensington last night … because he was required for off-field duties at the Strikers-Stars match at Adelaide Oval. And yesterday young off-spinner Michael Cormack was pulled from Adelaide’s team sheet for last night’s T20 against Glenelg.

It might be the moment cricket jumped the shark. The moment when playing the game clashed head-on with commercial concerns — and the latter won.

SA Cricket Association high performance manager Tim Nielsen described the situation as a “s**t sandwich” — but one that could not be avoided.

Nielsen said yesterday that with Alex Carey, Peter Siddle and Billy Stanlake unavailable because of Australian ODI duties, the Strikers were down to a bare minimum of players to meet the franchise’s contractual obligations. These obligations included tasks such as helping run off-field games for fans and satisfying sponsorship agreements.
 

Park cricketer

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View attachment 602307

Contrarian viewpoint: here are batting records against non-Afghanistan/Bangladesh/Zimbabwe sides over the last 5 years (excludes those who played <10 matches).

Australia's got 4 of the top 10, more than any other country. There is also only one Indian (Kohli) averaging above 45, outdone by most other major countries. I know that a series was just lost but I doubt these conversations would be had in earnest if Smith and Warner were scoring on average an additional 250 runs per game over two innings. Ultimately am still confident that Australia's systems will produce the world class batsmen that dominate the top of these charts for years to come.

And yes this implies Usman Khawaja is a top 10 batsman in world cricket (at least by batting average), particularly when you take out McCullum and Sangakkara

Contrarian - contrarian view point:)

Australia stands as a statistical outlier when it comes to average runs scored per wicket (by both host and visiting teams) in each country in the last 5 years because Australia has had (atleast statistically) the flattest wickets in the world in that time period. So that skews the result towards players from countries where batting has been the easiest.

Screenshot_20190115-063546__01.jpg


Although not perfect, but a slightly more accurate view can be obtained by searching for the batting records of players against the above mentioned countries, but scored outside of their home country.

Here are the away averages of batsmen in the last five years:

Screenshot_20190115-063907__01.jpg


While Australia still features the best batsman in that time period (Steve Smith), it doesn't have another active player in the top 10 (since Voges retired long ago). England have two in top 10, India have 2, NZ, Bang and SL have one each.

Warner comes at 13, but the issue starts after that. No other batsman from Australia features in the list until Shaun Marsh who averages 28. Next best is Mitch Marsh, who averages 18, not much more than Starc. When you relax the matches played limit to 7, Usman Khawaja features just above Shaun Marsh with a similar batting average.

There in lies Australia's problem. While there is no doubt that Steve Smith and David Warner have been one of the world's best batsmen in the recent years, they were just papering over the cracks and carrying other members of their team who have been below average in the specified time period. The problem runs deeper than Smith and Warner returning, and it is that no one apart from those two have been performing with the bat in the last 5 years. Atleast based on this data, results suggest an overhaul of the team and induction of new capable batsmen from the Shield, be it young prodigies or experienced pros in fc cricket. And credit to the Australian selectors, that's what they have done now for the Sri Lankan series, albeit a bit late.
 

corbies

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Contrarian - contrarian view point:)

Australia stands as a statistical outlier when it comes to average runs scored per wicket (by both host and visiting teams) in each country in the last 5 years because Australia has had (atleast statistically) the flattest wickets in the world in that time period. So that skews the result towards players from countries where batting has been the easiest.

View attachment 605438

Although not perfect, but a slightly more accurate view can be obtained by searching for the batting records of players against the above mentioned countries, but scored outside of their home country.

Here are the away averages of batsmen in the last five years:

View attachment 605439

While Australia still features the best batsman in that time period (Steve Smith), it doesn't have another active player in the top 10 (since Voges retired long ago). England have two in top 10, India have 2, NZ, Bang and SL have one each.

Warner comes at 13, but the issue starts after that. No other batsman from Australia features in the list until Shaun Marsh who averages 28. Next best is Mitch Marsh, who averages 18, not much more than Starc. When you relax the matches played limit to 7, Usman Khawaja features just above Shaun Marsh with a similar batting average.

There in lies Australia's problem. While there is no doubt that Steve Smith and David Warner have been one of the world's best batsmen in the recent years, they were just papering over the cracks and carrying other members of their team who have been below average in the specified time period. The problem runs deeper than Smith and Warner returning, and it is that no one apart from those two have been performing with the bat in the last 5 years. Atleast based on this data, results suggest an overhaul of the team and induction of new capable batsmen from the Shield, be it young prodigies or experienced pros in fc cricket. And credit to the Australian selectors, that's what they have done now for the Sri Lankan series, albeit a bit late.
This is flawed as other teams get to have the roads of Australia in their away average.
 

Park cricketer

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This is flawed as other teams get to have the roads of Australia in their away average.

It's obviously not perfect as I said but the result won't get as skewed as with the previous data set. Because there's a decent difference between the number of matches a team plays at home and then away in a particular country (Australia in this case).
 

Blue1980

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Not a great day for the Development Pathways/not playing BBL team so far against Sri Lanka. Pucovski made a start, Patteron's doing well, the rest all single figures with 5 down.

Patterson not identified as ‘Talent’ according to Greg Chappell?

Our selectors are like the reverse of moneyball, pick guys based on supposed hunches about technique/being a good bloke/having a hot girlfriend etc
 

Blue1980

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It's too easy to get opportunities for flashy attacking batsmen with potential in Australia and too hard for batsmen who have less talent but more grit.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

There’s is that but it’s also because the talent pool isn’t what it once was.

But yes I’d rather guys who have proven they can find a way to make runs at first class level rather than ones who haven’t.
 
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