Dubai: If you're one of those parents worried that your cricket-crazy child risks missing out on mastering the sport's true techniques due to the impact of the Twenty20 game, you may want to visit the ICC Global Cricket Academy (ICC GCA).
After all, with coaches of the calibre of former internationals like Rod Marsh, Mudassar Nazar and Dayle Hadlee, it would be next to impossible to pick up anything other than text book techniques.
The academy officially opened its doors to the world on Tuesday but have already conducted various school programmes over the past 18 months. And having just kicked off the second edition of the Ford Junior Coaching Programme across a number of schools in the UAE, the elite coaching trio believe they have found the right formula to ensure youngsters not only learn but have fun on the field as well.
"If you can catch them young, that's the best thing," said former Pakistan opening batsman Mudassar Nazar, now a head coach at the ICC GCA. "If you can iron out all the technical deficiencies early on in their career, it leaves them with a smoother path for the future. The sooner we eradicate all the deficiencies, we can start working on the elite part of the game."
The coaching programme targets children between ages five and 12 and includes one-hour sessions on everything from batting and bowling to the laws of the game over a duration of 10 weeks. Though the programme is heading into week three at most venues, it is still open to new entries. "The purpose is to create awareness among kids, especially in their school programmes. Not an awful lot has happened as far as school cricket is concerned in this part of the world," said Nazar who earned 76 Test caps for Pakistan. "There's a lot of fun involved because at this age when you are introducing the game to the kids the last thing you want is for them to get bored. If they have fun they will come back for more," he added.
It's an exciting time for Nazar, Marsh and Hadlee as ICC GCA prepares to settle into its permanent state-of-the-art facility at Dubai Sports City later this month. "The whole programme will take a different meaning altogether once we get into our own facilities. That's where we will be able to cater for a mass number of people. We will have 38 practice pitches there," said Nazar.
Marsh, director of the ICC GCA, added: "The three of us don't want to be going to schools per se. Our facilities here are going to be better than anywhere in the world, why do we want to go elsewhere? We want the people to come to us."
Batting for arab schools
The ICC Global Cricket Academy will look to work alongside the Emirates Cricket Board in developing the game among Emiratis and Arabs, but it won't be the institution's primary objective says director Rod Marsh.
"We're very eager and happy to help Emirates Cricket Board," the former Australian wicketkeeper told XPRESS. "We've got to work together, there's no doubt about that. But that's not our main remit. Our main remit is to help elite athletes really, and from all over the world, not just from the UAE. We can't be seen as a provider of resources just for the UAE because then what do all the other associate countries say. We've got to provide for the whole world," added Marsh.
Committed Team
However, the 62-year-old who once held a world record tally of 355 dismissals in Test cricket said ICC GCA are committed to taking cricket to Arab schools. "That's high on our agenda when we get the resources," Marsh said. "We're going to need a lot of other coaches to go out to those schools. We haven't got the time ourselves to go out to schools. We need additional resources which we're hoping to procure after Christmas. What we're trying to do is get qualified coaches and if they aren't qualified, we'll qualify them."
