One big frustration of coaching is the players who don't listen.

I was at a trial for under 14 players this weekend. I was chatting with another coaching who was talking about this exact issue. He said "the problem is, you tell a kid to change his grip and two minutes later he is back to doing it wrong again!"

I'm sure you empathise.

It was at that moment a light bulb came on for me.

If you tell someone to change and they don't, is it the person at fault or the method of coaching?

For me, this is proof that telling cricketers what to do is a very limited way of making improvements. You can tell some people a million times and they won't change.

I realised, it's not the player.

We, as coaches, needed to do less instructing and more coaching if we want to avoid this frustration.

Coach the person first

But wait.

Telling someone about a technical change is still the fastest way to improvement (when it works). Shouldn't we work out better ways to make it stick rather than giving up on the method?

This is where the art of coaching starts to come in.

Younger players and beginners are more open to ideas and don't have habits to break. You can switch things quickly and keep reinforcing those basics over time without much frustration.

Others either don't listen (because they think you are wrong) or can't make the change you want (because technique is ingrained from thousands of repetitions). Telling them to change is a terrible method.

In other words, you need to know who you are coaching before you start telling them what to do.

Ask questions

Lets say you are clear you know the technical change that will help the player, and just telling them is not working.

The next step is to use the power of open-ended questions.

This is not just another way to tell a player what to do. You can't just ask "how would you change your grip to make it better?" and wait for the perfect answer and see an instant change. Young cricketers are especially adept at giving the answer they think is correct. They will tell you the perfect grip position then go back to their original one at the first opportunity. They might not even have the movement literacy to even do what they say they should do.

Instead, get to the root of the problem. Keep peeling away layers with more questions until you are right at the bottom. Here are some ideas:

• "How does it feel to drive the ball?"
• "What have you tried in the past to improve your setup?"
• "What would you improve about your technique if you could?"

You will get all kinds of strange discussions from this, often far from the point you are trying to get to.

And that's OK!

Chances are you will not even end up talking about grip (or whatever it is you wanted to change) because the player has different views, methods, theories and ideas from you.

Some people don't have ideas at all and look blankly at you while you frantically search for a question that engages them. Keep trying, everyone has a trigger than gets them talking. Everyone is learning how to learn better.

Get as much information as you can.

Get out of nets

As you build a better picture, you can work with the player to make changes. But you cannot do this in nets.

Nets are great, but using them for technical changes is building an environment that almost guarantees failure. To make a technical change, you need space and time for drills. You need to repeat things. You need to experiment. You need to build in improvements in movement skills.

Of course, getting a player out of nets can be a challenge in many situations. If you are one coach trying to wrangle a dozen or more teenage cricketers in two net lanes and no other space, you laugh at the luxury of drilling. But that said, there is usually some way if you get creative.

To take our grip example, you could pull a batsman out of nets after seeing a "claw" bottom hand and ask them a few questions about their batting method. You decide to try a change of grip between you to see if anything can lead to cleaner hitting and a straighter bat. You do some one hand drills (top and bottom).

After some messing around with grips, the player says they find a more orthodox grip better and head back into nets to try again.

Will this work instantly every time?

No, but if the player has bought in, feels comfortable and found out that it works for them, they are far more likely to keep trying in the long run and get to the point it becomes second nature. It's no longer forced. It's a natural develoment.

That way, instructing towards failure becomes coaching towards success.

It's hard to do as a coach, but it's far more satisfying!