For me, the start of any season brings a huge levels of anticipation, excitement and is also tinged with a few butterflies.

And I am just the coach!

The Millfield School U14 season of 2016 was not stellar.

We came second in a number of games.

We lost the County Cup final.

Our batting unit was not equipped to bat for 40 or more overs.

We did however, start to see the emergence of a group of bowlers whom we hope will develop into a very exciting and potent bowling attack.

The boys were also pleasure to work with as team: A top bunch led by Max Hancock and Scott Reed. It was a super coaching experience even though the side were the only Millfield squad not to win silverware in 2016.

As a batting group we were very attacking and reckless. Would you believe that we failed to register a single individual 50 across the 18 game season?

Sack the batting coach, I hear you say.

Winter focus

So the aim for this winters development programme was to maximise the super strengths of each bowler whilst encouraging every player to take their batting skills to the next level.

The group have really taken the second task in particular. We have seen players increasing their incidence of self reliant drilling on skills such as:

Playing spin,

• Getting to the pitch of the ball or all the way back
• Sweep options to access gaps, move fielders and put bowlers under pressure
• Hitting easy 6’s using ground force reaction and stability to fire the speed of the hands and bat through the ball
• Identifying stolen singles to spinners

Playing pace,

• Softer/lighter ball extreme pace drills using sidearms
• Alignment drills to ensure that the bat stays on line with the incoming ball for longer on its journey from pitch to contact
• Stolen single awareness.
• Back foot play, especially pull and cut.
• Moving around the crease in order to hit from stable bases yet access different spaces on the ground.
• Understanding our individual strengths and weaknesses as players and stick to them as long as you can in each game situation.

We scored four 50+ individual scores at last week’s short format festival and another player (last years number 11) scored 45 batting at number 5 in the last match: A great initial return on a winter of hard work in the bubble.

So sure, regular, specific practice with a good attitude towards practice practice has helped these players develop at an accelerated rate.

But there are also other factors linked with the significant upturn in runs for individuals and for us as a team.

The team were not bad players in 2016, they just didn’t know how to move a “start” into a “match influencing” innings. We had twenty one scores of 20–30 in 2016 and not one 50!

Now that this is in place, I anticipate bigger totals, more individual milestones and more competition for batting slots.

Also, it’s been great to see players such as Scott Reed develop physically over the year. He now has several boundary options on both sides of he wickets. The same shots last year dribbled to cover, then now hit the boundary rope in a blink of an eye! Patience is a virtue when it comes to physical development.

Practice hours

The number of practice hours has increased. Not just within the programme but it’s been great to see players accessing the bubble and working self reliantly in their free time.

This volume of work is beginning to pay off.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we will become world beaters overnight, nor that we will start notching up 100 after 100 across the team or that we won’t get bowled out for 60 at some point.

If you play enough cricket then you will suffer a collapse at some point or another. No-one is immune to that.

But it does mean that our top order players can now bat with the shackles off a little more regularly so it should be an entertaining summer if nothing else.

I can’t wait to get cracking again on Sunday against Somerset U15’s.

May the sun shine on all of the Northern Hemisphere after a winter of dark, cold days in indoor environments!