Ready to be inspired by a great Storey...

As the rain continues to pour though, I do hope that it can abate for the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games, a wonderful spectacle and celebration of human achievement. I have always been a close follower of the Paralympics since the mid 1990s when my sister became very good friends with Sarah Storey, or Sarah Bailey as she was then. In London, Sarah will be competing in her sixth Paralympics, her first being in Barcelona in 1992, and will be aiming to increase her medal tally up from the 18 she has already won including 7 Gold’s. What makes Sarah’s record even more impressive is that up until 2004 she competed as a swimmer, but when an ear infection forced her out of the pool in 2005, she then took up cycling to keep fit. Within a year she had broken the 3000m Individual Pursuit Paracycling world record. Since then she won two Golds in Beijing, won a World Championship Gold in the able bodied team pursuit breaking the world record and almost making the Olympic squad and will be aiming to increase that medal tally in her home Games.

Sarah Storey has always been an inspiration

                For Sarah’s story (forgive the pun), there are many others, and I look forward to hearing about the  remarkable tales of bravery, achievement and dedication of these true sporting heros over the next few weeks. What I am certain about, is that many peoples misconceptions of disabled sport will be challenged, and I hope to see greater opportunity and access to disability sport following the inspiration provided by these great athletes.

                With just two weeks to go of our cricket season at Kimberley, it is getting to that stage where sometimes it can be hard to find the focus. With no chance of winning the league and finding ourselves in the comfort of a mid-table position, there can often appear little to play for as the season begins to peter out to a close. We must make sure that we do not fall into this position and that we keep our standards through to the end of the season. Two wins to finish could leave us as high as third in the table, and that should be what we are aiming for as we come up against two strong opponents in Clifton and Welbeck. It was great to see Dan Birch and Akhil Patel in full flow last weekend as they demolished Worksop and hopefully they can maintain that form through the final two weeks to let us leave the season on a high note.

Finding the winning formula

As the cricket season enters its final throws, my attention has already started to drift a little on to the difficult task of preparing my Beeston hockey squad for the new season. With a new season always comes the challenge of building a new team. Very few teams have exactly the same personnel each season and once again, we will have a small amount of player turnover for the new season. It is always important to have renewal. This does not necessarily have to be new players, but renewal can be as simple as new challenges for experienced players, new tactical considerations or different approaches to previously turgid tasks. Of course, new renewal does not mean that you should not continue to build on previous achievements and successful aspects, and both at Beeston this season, and Kimberley in 2013, that will be the challenge we face.

Building successful teams though, is as much about creating the right team environment as it is about having the best players. There is no doubt having top players is helpful! However, as we have seen with England during the past two weeks, the best players at times can often be the most disruptive!

So how can you deal with awkward players as a Captain or Coach? Can you ever fully integrate players into a successful team whose goals or targets are not aligned with those of the group or who values their own success above that of the team?

For an answer to this question I have looked to the words of Ric Charlesworth, a renowned cricket player and Olympic hockey player and coach. He states “Complex integrated team activities require co-operative, co-ordinated actions, both continuous and spontaneous. An athlete whose primary goal is not the success of the team will usually not improve the team’s performance. Athletes are occasionally self-centred to the detriment of the team, but rarely is it a consistent pattern of behaviour. What is common, however, is that the athlete is distracted by outside influences such as the media, family, friends, personal issues and lifestyle issues which can absorb and overwhelm them. These influences can cause athletes to lose awareness of the team dynamic that contributes to performance. Being able to co-operate and work together is critical to team sport.”

Kevin Pietersen's desire to play in the IPL has been the real cause of disharmony in the changing room

As much as you can guess, I think this assessment pretty much sums up the situation that had led to Kevin Pietersen being jettisoned from the England team. While there is no doubt that he still takes pride in playing for England, and wants to continue, as demonstrated by the hastily put together video interview prior to the last squad announcement, the lure of the big bucks of the IPL and no doubt poor advice, has forced him into negotiations with his employers which have clearly ruffled the feathers of Captain, Coach and teammates. The inevitable consequences in any dressing room are then disharmony as the perception takes place that this man would rather be somewhere else.

Yet is it all KP’s fault? Of course not. This particular problem surrounding the IPL has been brewing ever since its conception. Other countries have had issues already, Chris Gayle of course a clear example. If the IPL continues to fill the window it takes in the calendar and the ECB insist on playing Test cricket in April and May then it will not go away. The ICC seriously need to take a look at the cricket calendar and decide in which direction they want the game to go. I fear that they can’t continue to have their cake and eat it for much longer.

What though, as club cricketers, Captains and Coaches can we learn from this saga? Well primarily it is that you need to have everyone working towards a collective goal. If you as Captain want to win the league, but others in the team do not share this vision, it will be hard to carry people with you. Everyone must strive for the same goal, and in doing so appreciate that personal sacrifices may have to be taken in reaching it. They also have to trust and believe in their own ability, but perhaps more importantly in the ability of their teammates. Sharing this trust, and also enjoying the success of others as much as your own is the only way to become a successful team.

Aggregate the marginal gains

This weekend proved to be something of a mixed bag for us at Kimberley. We went from the highs of a sensational innings of 180 by Dan Birch on Saturday, to the low of being 8 for 4 in our biggest game of the season on Sunday. What I was most pleased about though, was the way we fought on both days to push for the win, particularly Sunday, when it would have been very easy to roll up and disappear into the night, or the early afternoon, at Sandiacre.

                Sunday’s performance was actually, in many ways, one of the best I have seen from a Kimberley side I have played in. That may sound strange I know, having been beaten quite comfortably in the end. However, the way that we fought back from the brink to post a score, demonstrated to quite a few spectators, and members of the team, that we do have the backbone to sustain a challenge when the going gets tough. Dominic Wheatley innings of 50 was without doubt his best for the club, and is another sign of the way he is converting his undoubted talent into consistent performances. In the field, we were dynamic, relentless, and perhaps one might think a little unlucky with decisions on reflection. Ultimately though, we were beaten by a better team on the day, and we wish Sandiacre all the best in the Final.

                It is starting to get to the stage of the season now where you start to ask yourself, what can we do to get better in order to go in the future from contenders to winners? There is no easy formula of course. One of the main attractions for me when joining Kimberley was the fact they play by the rules. There is no temptation to start throwing money at players, which of course gives you a perceived advantage when wanting to challenge, but is not always a sure fire way to success.

So what can you do to break out of the pack and become top dog? For the answer, I have looked to take inspiration from Team GB outstanding cycling team. Their Head Honcho is a man called Dave Brailsford. Once again at the Olympics, the British Team have dominated on the track, winning 7 out of 10 events, in addition to a silver and bronze. This has left many teams puzzled about how the British are able to dominate so often. Is it through some hidden technology or wizardry coaching they ask. For Brailsford it is simple – just ‘aggregate the marginal gains’. In simple terms, this just means that by making small improvements in lots of different areas, it enables you to make bigger improvements overall and thus stay one step ahead of the rest. Here is an example – when Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy are waiting between races, they wear electrically heated ‘hot pants’ that keep their leg muscles warm, something inspired by Formula One’s tyre warmers.



guardian.co.uk (c) Dave Brailsford has a mantra based on aggregating the marginal gains

So how can this help us at Kimberley? Well as much as it would be funny to see Richard Adams wearing electrically heated leg warmers during tea, I don’t think that they will necessarily be in our budget or prove quite as effective. However, if each player starts to examine their own game in more detail to see where they can improve, it might just give us enough areas to work on to make that difference. It could be something as simple as hitting more balls in a warm up to get your eyes fully attuned to the conditions, or becoming more specialised with your fielding positions and warming up specifically. We often see slip fielders practising using a cradle, but how often do we see point fielders practising fielding balls hit square off a bat with spin taken into account?

Hopefully, if we start to think more carefully through the winter about the smaller components of our game, it might just give us the edge to ensure we stay in contention into September rather than just August. One thing that is for certain is that this weekend clearly showed that we have the quality and the fight to do just that in the future.

ICC need female Twenty20 vision when it comes to the Olympics

What a fantastic week it has been so far for British sport. I have spent Monday and Tuesday down in the Olympic Park, and it has been a wonderful experience. The tag line of the games has been to ‘inspire a generation’, and I have no doubt that the sensational performances by British athletes is doing just that. One of the things that struck me about the games, was just how well organised everything has been. Often the press have been very quick to jump on the back of politicians and civil servants for small mistakes or perceived overspends on just ‘two weeks of sport’ that few will be interested in. How wrong they have been. The country has been gripped with Olympic-fever, tickets are the hottest property in town, and now Paralympic ticket sales have rocketed as everyone wants to experience their own taste of London 2012.

                One topic I picked up being debated in social media while down in London was should Cricket be included in the Olympics? It is a question that often produces polarised opinion. Many Games purists argue that the Olympics should be the preserve of the amateur athlete, and that Cricket, a hugely popular professional sport has no place there. One clue to support this argument has been the response from the general public to football at these games. Despite the fact we are a football loving nation, those are the tickets that have been hardest to shift.

                Other critics argue that we simply could not fit it into the calendar. Cricket already has an extremely hectic schedule, and the ECB would not be very keen on another Twenty20 tournament taking up valuable time in the international schedule during the English Test Match summer. Another issue might be the problem of whether we have enough high quality teams. The West Indies would all have to compete as individual islands and the Scotland would have to contribute to Team GB.

                Despite all this however, I think the time is just ripe. Not for a full international men’s tournament though, but a women’s only competition. For me, this Olympics has been the Games of the girls. How many of you can deny feeling huge amounts of pride as Jessica Ennis won her Gold Medal. Then there was the brilliant performance of Katherine Grainger et al. on the rowing lake and Laura Trott in the Velodrome making this a perfect opportunity to capitalise on the high profile of female sport.

A packed Park Live where people have been celebrating men's and women's success in equal measure

                As someone who coaches a lot of female sport with my hockey commitments in the winter, it has been fantastic to see girls sport finally on a level footing in the way it is presented and reported. You could not even get into Park Live, the big screen at the Olympic Park, to watch Victoria Pendleton riding in the Sprint Final and I found myself spying through a hedge to get a glimpse of her epic final with Anna Mears. If cricket, as a sport, could tap into the Olympics to raise the profile of the women’s game, in doing so it would not only demonstrate to the widest female audience how good a game cricket is to get involved with, but it would also start to help cricket get access to funding streams in associate nations. This will result in better facilities, larger participation and hopefully, over time, more teams competing at the top level. Not only that, we should have a good chance of a medal! I know that our female cricketers would relish the chance to participate in an Olympics and for all of them, winning a Gold Medal would not doubt be the pinnacle of their careers. Then if it is a success, which it undoubtedly would be, a men’s competition could follow in time. So here’s to Women’s Twenty20 in 2020!