BY PATIENCE LEPHOGOLE
The Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) hosted the just ended ICC Southern Africa Level 1 coaches’ course between the 8th and the 12th of April.
The course was conducted by Cricket South Africa (CSA) through the auspices of the ICC.
This is said to be helpful as coaches can expect to explore and develop their coaching philosophy, develop a deeper understanding of cricket skills required to achieve high level performance, and use techniques to help them better understand themselves as coaches as well as players they work with.
The course equipped coaches with skills to plan long, medium and short-term for performance gain.
It was attended by 18 participants from Namibia, Swaziland and Botswana. The BCA secretary for fixtures and publicity Sumod Damodar said: “This is Southern Africa regional Course and as such participants were invited through the member countries in the region. The Course presently has representatives from Botswana & Swaziland; Namibia was also to attend but unfortunately could not be present. There were a total of 15 participants.”
He further said the coaching course will be of benefit to the cricket fraternity. He said “It allows for people to develop their current levels of skills and knowledge and provides an opportunity to get higher certifications to become top class coaches. It also provides an opportunity to seek a career for those who wish to pursue one locally or internationally.”
Moreover, Damodar said there is no specific reason why the coaching course is held around this time. “There is no specific reason but the logistics of having the Course Facilitators together and to allow for other similar courses to take place in the other regions were all contributing factors, ” added Damodar.
“The ICC are standardising the different Courses and certifications, globally, so that anyone who is qualified from any part of the world will be at par from the others from other parts of the world,” said Damodar. He further added that “To this end, ICC will be using the services and expertise of Cricket South Africa (CSA) to impart the knowledge & skills and evaluate the participants for qualification of the Level 1 Course. The intention is also to foster local Trainers within each Member country, for the future.”
Damodar further said: “After the 5 day course, which is a very intense programme with theory and practical workshops taking place, the participants will be tested before getting any certification.”
“They will be required to put their knowledge into practice for a certain amount of hours, under supervision, before they will be permitted to attend the Level 2 for up gradation,” added Damodar.
