A few weeks ago I was asked to do a session with a top class player who had lost his 'mojo' against spin.

When I asked him to tell me about his plans for our time together he said,

"I don't want to feel shotless when the ball spins, don't want to feel as if I am going to nick it to slip or short leg and I don't want to be stuck in the crease".

I thanked him for the honesty feedback and then asked, "what is it that you wanto to do against spin?"

In truth, at this point, my job as a coach was done.

The player then started to talk about moving deep in the crease, pushing back into leg-stump to hit through the off-side off the back foot, skipping out of his crease to get as close to the pitch of the ball as possible and sweeping the bowlers best deliveries out to deep square for one.

With this statement he defined the areas of our sessions.

Towards style coaching

The lesson here is that it's always important to focus on what you want to achieve rather than what you want to avoid.

I call this positive approach a 'towards' coaching style. It's very effective.

However, I have worked with coaches who work in a mainly 'away from' coaching style; they describe in detail what they don’t want to happen.

These coaches intentions are as honourable as mine or yours, yet the presentation of their coaching points is often counter-intuitive.

Imagine that you ask an under 14 batsman not to think of getting out.

What’s on his mind?

He has to think about getting out first so he knows what not to think about.

Then, the very thing you didn't want the player to do is now embedded in his mind.

As a result, the main influence on your players thinking and technique is now the action you asked them to stop or avoid.

I often hear coaches using negative commands when coaching their players?

"Don't let your head fall over when you bowl"

"Don't play the ball early"

"Don't let your wrist collapse.

We have all done it, yet we know it doesn't help our players!

This week's homework

Can you reflect on your language patterns and see if your words fit into the following model;

80% of your words with players should be about what you want the player to do, with only 20% being about what you want the player to stop doing.

Record your session on a camera or on your voice memo phone app and listen back. It's intriguing!