Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher. I bet he was a decent coach too! He knocked around the Lu State in China and passed away in 479 BC.

One of his greatest sayings that still resonates today:

“Tell people and they may forget, show them and they may remember but involve them and they will understand”

I annoyingly catch myself saying “I don’t know what’s wrong with him as I have told him to do this, not that!” this has happened in the last couple of weeks on tour in India too.

Sorry kids!

Confucius would have had a field day on me! That’s pretty much useless coaching if you look at his amazing quote above and I need to keep his words in the forefront of my mind going forward if I am want keep getting better as a coach.

However, by complete chance, and through an amazing conversation with one of the Millfield Parents in Mumbai, I actually did the last two elements of the quote as well.

Showing and involving.

Millfield U16s had a poor start against the very organised MIG Academy last Friday. MIG is Sachin Tendulkar’s club in Mumbai and it’s a great spot if you are ever in that neck of the woods.

We bowled first, the ball swung around corners and our seamers leaked wides all over the place. Our U14 Keeper, Jamie, had been ill over night but was determined to play in the game. The heat kept rising and I eventually convinced Jamie that the shade of the pavilion, some electrolytes and water were a far better option.

As I walked around the ground trying to gee everyone up, a thought came into my head.

Why don’t I go on and keep wicket?

We could get some enthusiasm going, get the ball thudding back into my gloves every ball at 90%, I could ensure that we had the right fielders on the right lines and angles.

What an amazing idea!

So at next drinks break (114–2 off 17 Overs) on I trotted. I got the consent of the brilliant MIG coach and umpires and then started to put on Jamie’s keeping kit.

As I put Jamie’s keeping pads on I realised that I was in trouble.

They were shin pad size, even on my legs! I squeezed my hands into his boy sized keeping gloves, minus keeping inners (they simple wouldn’t fit) and I tried to move my fingers and hands in the way that I did many moons ago.

Naturally, I chose to get on with it and proceeded to drop a thick edge standing up on the 4th ball; sorry Max.

I kept shouting encouragement, kept my body language strong and hoped that no one had noticed.

We got a wicket five balls later and the boys made sure that they got stuck into me in the huddle!

Three minutes later, Ikey picked up his first wicket of the tour and then Max got another two.

Ben came onto bowl his first over ever as an off-spinner. Another edge.

And…

Sorry fella!

100% failure rate behind the stumps from Coach Garas.

Then two more wickets went down and we were flying! The boys were turning the game around, the body language was excellent, the energy high even in 35C heat.

The last four overs were brilliant, the seamers came on and did a great job. Kasey in particular mixed up his bouncer, Yorker and slower ball very well. One lad got 40 for MIG and tried to “Ramp” Kasey over my head. The ball clipped the edge of the bat and flew to my right.

The ball hit the end of my fingers and went to 3rd man.

Three drops from three chances!

Shocker.

Last ball of the innings, another Kasey bumper was hooked straight up. I call for the ball just as it goes directly into the huge Indian sun.

I next saw the ball about five feet from my hands and fortunately had relaxed enough and kept a cool head. A slight redemption. I was now one catch from four chances

We bowled MIG out in the 40th over for 205. The last 8 wickets falling for 99 runs in 23 Overs.

Despite dropping three catches, I loved it.

On the bus after the game I sat next to Graham, Kasey dad. A great man and a top Airline pilot. He spoke to me about how brilliant it was to see the way that I changed the approach of the day when keeping wicket, how the fielders then had a focal point for their efforts and how they seemed to understand angle, line and depth when setting and adapting fields.

Graham likened the scene that he saw in front of him to his experience when working in flight simulators with his flight coaches. They stop the simulator and discuss what’s going on around them, then adapt and perform to a enhanced level as a result of this practice method.

Aviation is an incredible business to study and there are lots of things that coaches can learn from adapting aviation practice into cricket training and playing contexts.

So there and then Graham and I came up with a training plan for the summer.

Matthew Thompson (Assistant Coach at Millfield and Devon CCC wicket keeper) and myself are are both glovemen. We are going to both keep wicket in centre wicket practices when our normal keepers are batting. We will drive the fielding unit from the middle of the ground.

We will show the players exactly what we want to happen and how we want it to happen whilst involving them in that process at the same time.

Hitting the last two parts of that Confucius quote.

The boys were brilliant in the second half of the MIG innings. They responded well. But the most impressive thing of all was how the returning Jamie and the team performed in the next two matches after that MIG experience.

Jamie grew as a wicket keeping presence in the field. After watching me orchestrate the field and demand the ball throughout my 23 overs, he started to do the same in our games vs GCS and Hindi Gym.

The players reacted to him well.

They stood on the right lines, were precise with their depth and angle and hit Jamie with 90% intensity throws from the inner ring. It was incredible to watch that fielding unit develop in front of my eyes!

We can get lazy as coaches and choose only to “tell”.

Can you follow this lead by showing and involving to develop players memory and understanding just as the Great Chinese “coach” says?

Give it a go!