Cricket's KISS of life

Moores coaching the coaches to continue English cricket's rise

By Oli Burley   Last updated: 8th July 2008

Cricket's KISS of life

Moores: safe pair of hands

The key for me is if there are some simple basics that people use, you pass them down the chain.

Peter Moores
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Sky Sports' ECB Coach Education Programme is aimed at improving standards at grassroots level - with a little help from the very top.

England coach Peter Moores is an ambassador for the scheme and before setting his sights on South Africa, he talked about it's merits, as well as giving the assembled journalists a lesson in fielding.

We sent Oli Burley along to throw some questions his way...

'Keep it simple, stupid' was Steve Waugh's mantra for an illustrious career and, thankfully, the KISS method of play is one England coach Peter Moores buys into.

After a dispiriting one-day series defeat to New Zealand, a strong South Africa side lies in wait but first Moores has taken time out to oversee a Masterclass skills session at Lord's.

Unfortunately, none of the amateur participants possess an ounce of Derek Randall's fielding ability and the first drill is more debacle than Arkle.

But coaching, at all levels, is as much about support as training so Moores suggests the group is excellent at bad catching and having fostered belief, moves on to tackle technique.

Similarly English cricket, just like catching, relies on a solid base - something the Sky Sports ECB Coach Education Programme aims to develop through a variety of initiatives.

Over 4,500 coaches qualified through the scheme in 2007 and with a further 2,500 assistants in training this year its importance, to club and school cricket alike, is not lost on Moores.

"Cricket is having a revolution at the moment, it's flying," he tells skysports.com.

"The (ECB) stats will tell you there is a 27 per cent increase in participation with men and 45 per cent with women.

"It started with (England winning) the 2005 Ashes; since then you've had the Twenty20 and now the IPL (Indian Premier League) and the whole thing has moved on.

"Coaching support in education has also moved massively through the support of people like Sky and I think we've got lots of really good coaches out there."

The good news for anyone baffled by biomechanics is that the tried and tested formula of effective practice - repeating good technique - remains at coaching's core.

Only honed skills stand up under pressure and while Fusion bats and bendy stumps may be all the rage, bowling at dustbin lids a la Fred Trueman can be just as effective.

Self-sufficiency

"The key for me is if there are some simple basics that people use, you pass them down the chain," explains Moores, without compromising individuality.

"We don't want spoon-fed players, we want independently-thinking players so the coaching line has to be 'here are the basics, what can you do with them?'"

That same self-sufficiency is at the very core of the ECB's Cricket Young Leaders course, which aims to teach basic leadership skills to 4,500 14-18-year-olds before the end of 2008.

Together with the Working in Schools programme, it sets out to support the thousands of club volunteers who strive each week to foster young talent.

And what better inspiration and reward could there be for those coaches than for Moores' men to embark on a period of Test domination that even Waugh would find ruthless?

In the first year, the Sky Sports ECB Coach Education Programme reached over 5,500 coaches throughout the country, 50 per cent more then had been targeted for.

There are 500 planned courses for new coaches to qualify taking place throughout the country.

Sky Sports are one of the major contributors towards ECB grassroots cricket, whose participation figures rose by 27 per cent in the last year

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