[00:00:00] Josh Kennedy: On today's show, we're talking about the Cricket Matters coaching method. We're going to dive in deep to what exactly that is. So let James jump straight to you. What is the Cricket Matters, matters, excuse me, coaching method? If I can get my words out. 

[00:00:15] James Breese: It is our system of helping young cricketers and in fact, any cricketer develop to unlock and unleash their kind of full cricketing potential, whether it's just.

[00:00:24] To play club cricket, to play youth cricket, or even to aspire to get into the professional levels. It's using all our expertise over the last 20 plus years in the fitness industry, combining my experience playing cricket and also diving into the world of cricket coaching and helping and create a systematic approach to help develop these athletes, which I think they need help with.

[00:00:47] And I think it's, um, like we know in fitness, I think it's a big part. of the puzzle has been missing for a long time, because I think when it comes to cricket coaching, a lot of the athletes, and this was myself [00:01:00] included, focus so much on the technical aspect of the game, that it bogs them down, it weighs them down and stops them from making progress because they always think it's something technical.

[00:01:12] And we're conditioned to think it's always something technical because That's what makes it interesting on TV. People love analyzing people's technique when they're batting, when they're bowling, right? But you can get bogged down with the technique that holds you back from playing the game. And cricket is just as much a physical and mental side of the game as it is technical.

[00:01:37] And I believe, particularly young kids and athletes growing up, and I wish I had this coming up as well, is they need to understand the physical aspect impacts your performance. They need to understand your mental resilience impacts performance. And those are the key and hardest bits. So to take control of before they start working on technical.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] And that is where this whole model came about. And it also came about where it came back in for me, where coming back into the game, I wanted to compete and play, you know, this old dog wants to keep playing as high as possible, right? And having such a long breakout from playing cricket, from travel, work, life, everything here and living abroad in a country where they didn't even play cricket for God's sake, you know, that was part of the problem as well.

[00:02:23] You have this aspect of like, well I had to relearn myself. And what have I gone through? What are my processes and what are the things that have helped me, but doing so with a coaching head on as opposed to a young athlete's head, and that's what I try to do. And this culminated in what we call, and I'll share my screen now, is our, our coach, our cricket coaching method.

[00:02:45] Yeah. Where it's, as you say, this is, you know, we've, 

[00:02:47] Josh Kennedy: we've developed this over a few years now using you as the, as the model, because obviously, as you say, we have the experience and the. Health and fitness, strength and conditioning industry, but also you as a former and [00:03:00] now you were a former player. Now you're back playing again for the last few years.

[00:03:04] You know, you're in the game. I think that's really important to point out. So it's not, we're not just approaching it from the health and fitness side of things. So I'm on that more on that side and you're on the game side. 

[00:03:15] James Breese: It is and that is right. It's like I want to lead from the front and I always know the best coaches lead from the front.

[00:03:21] They don't need to be elite, but they need to be able to understand and relate to the players, what they're going through mentally, psychologically, physically, technically. So it's not just about slinging balls down the nets. It's being able to relate to the players and talking about game situations. And what I found is that Going back and seeing the players is that they go to the, if you can see on the screen now, we've got the pyramid.

[00:03:48] So the bottom of the pyramid is physical conditioning and movement quality. Please don't watch this. If you're driving, listen to the podcast, don't watch it on YouTube later, right? So physical conditioning and movement quality is the first thing [00:04:00] we're going to look at. So when we assess an athlete, we're looking at this.

[00:04:03] Secondly, we're going to ask questions about their mental and psychological resilience. What is their strategy? What is their mental toolkit to help them perform? And then we look at the technical and the tactical aspect of the game. Because, more often than not, if we address the physical conditioning first, let's just say they're unfit.

[00:04:21] We get them fitter, they're going to start to think better. They think better, they're going to make better decisions, and they're going to be able to play the game better. But what I'm seeing is like, at the same time, is their quality of movement. When it comes to technique, let's just say a bowler who's got a very low point of release for their arm.

[00:04:40] Well, if you try to get them to a higher, a higher release point, great. But they've got a physical limitation of movement quality that impacts them from doing that. You're always going to struggle. So that may just be changing their mobility routine, addressing shoulder mobility, addressing hip mobility, whatever it is, address that first to allow them to get into that better position.

[00:04:59] Batsman [00:05:00] again, front shoulder. Yeah. I see it's so tight and stiff and round. It's always going to impact you with your head leading to the offside. So it's seeing these things and addressing these things at this stage that allows me to work on technique later down the line. Now, in the second pillar, you've got mental resilience, mental and psychological resilience.

[00:05:23] A lot of players get nervous. They get nervous before a game. They get nervous going out to bat. I spoke to a young lad over the weekend, and he says, I get really nervous when I go out to bat every time. I get really nervous when I go out to bowl. So the first five or six balls, I'm just wanting to survive.

[00:05:41] That's not a growth mindset. That's a negative mindset. And if you have a negative mindset when you're going out, and you're nervous, and you're nervous, You're going to probably be highly likely to get out in that first five to 20 balls, right? But how do you cope with those? What's the process? What's the routine?

[00:05:58] What's the routine of [00:06:00] playing each ball? What's the routine of getting themselves out of trouble when they're bowling? Most amateur players and also young athletes coming through don't have these processes. And that's, it's so important because when things go wrong, You default back to your training, right?

[00:06:18] You default back to your system. And if you haven't got a system in place, that's when things go right. So again, let's take this young bowl, an example. He said that if I bowl a wide, I lose my head. If I bowl a second wide, forget about it. I'm mentally gone and I'm just like flustered and I don't know what to do.

[00:06:36] Wides are part of the game. It's how you code it and how you reframe it. That's the key thing. So it's helping these athletes develop these mental strategies. And once you have this in place. And they have these checked down, nailed down. Their game will automatically improve without even touching the technical or tactical stuff.

[00:06:53] Because they're feeling better, they're enjoying it more, they've got a smile on their face, they know what to do when things are going wrong. And then we can sprinkle up [00:07:00] Magic's pixie dust at the top of it, analysing what their technique is to make those subtle changes to take their game to the next level.

[00:07:06] But, that's taking it to the next level. This is like the foundation of basics of what we call, Sleeping, walking and drinking water. If you haven't got those foundational ways in place, you're always gonna struggle to lose weight, get fitter, get stronger, be healthy. What I see is a physical conditioning and the mental and psychological resilience tactics are the basics to be able to go and perform at the game of cricket and enjoy it more.

[00:07:29] And they don't have this in play. And this is why we're trying to develop this and encourage this side of things first. Before we look at the technical and tactical aspect of 

[00:07:37] Josh Kennedy: the game. Absolutely. I was going to say any bowlers listening in, go back and listen to the Andre Nell podcast, which is really good.

[00:07:44] And he talks about his system, what he did, his checkpoints. Didn't he have some checkpoints to make sure if his bowling went wrong, if he wasn't on the right line or whatever, then he had these checkpoints to go through. I thought it was really good, really good for any bowlers [00:08:00] out there to listen into that.

[00:08:02] So we talked a little bit about, uh, obviously physical conditioning and the mental side of things. And as you say, they both impact the technical and tactical. If you get the first two right, then you may not even have to address the third one. What about some talking our method as a whole? Any quick wins you would you say from the using the cricket matters coaching method?

[00:08:22] James Breese: Yeah, well, obviously getting fit doesn't mean you're going to play the game better. Having a psychological mental process to deal with how you watch it is going to help you feel better. But again, let's take an easy example for a quick win for people in the technical and technical aspect. For batsmen, if your head, hands and pick up are poor, You're always going to struggle.

[00:08:44] Likewise, if your setup is poor. So those are the three plus one, as I call them, three plus one things you're going to work on is what's your head position, what are your hands doing and what is your pick up like? Because it's all about making better contact with the ball. And then with that, we look at the setup to begin with.

[00:08:59] So before you even face [00:09:00] the ball, this is what we're going to get right. To get you in a position to be able to strike the ball cleanly. That's the first win and first four areas I want you to look at and think about first. And in terms of bowling, the run up. Let's look at the run up. I think for spinners or for fast bowlers, most of the issues arise from the run up.

[00:09:19] And how are you looking in? How are you moving? Where's your energy going towards the crease? What line are you coming in? What's your head doing? These are the things we're going to focus on first. And again, the athlete I worked with on Saturday. These are the things I was talking to him about this bowl.

[00:09:31] He's a very talented athlete, could be very talented, but we haven't got these things and these basics nailed down with a run up to allow him to express himself fully at the point of delivery. Then, once you get the run up right, then we can focus. On that tactical and technical aspect of point of release delivery stride brace front leg all that stuff But these are the quick ones you can do It doesn't cost much to go out and practice your running bicep hurdles do some wickets drills We'll do some videos about that later on here, [00:10:00] but it'll teach you how to run better What are your arms doing?

[00:10:03] Are they going side to side, where the momentum is going side to side, or are they going in a straight line? Whatever it is, these are quick wins you can do from the system we look at. But it's the basics done well. And what I keep saying all the time is, Beginners have to earn the right to break the rules.

[00:10:19] Pros can break the rules because they've earned the right to get 

[00:10:24] Josh Kennedy: there. Okay. They 

[00:10:25] James Breese: master the basics. Exactly. Exactly. So when you watch on TV, it's not always a good idea when it comes to club crickets. Club cricket is different from the pro game. Yeah. And that's really important to understand. Absolutely.

[00:10:39] Josh Kennedy: Uh, so if somebody said to you, what makes the cricket matters coaching method different from traditional coaching, what would you say? 

[00:10:45] James Breese: I say it's more of a complete approach to cricket coaching. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with other coaches and how they do things. There's some great coaches out there and how they apply it.

[00:10:54] But we're looking at it from a physical, nutritional standpoint and mental standpoint [00:11:00] first. Before we look at the technical stuff says everyone has their own quirks when it comes to technical stuff Everyone has their own ideas. That's their own magic pixie dust, right? They sprint on top of the athletes getting better.

[00:11:09] That's great That's absolutely superb. I highly encourage Athletes to go and work with as many coaches as possible and take the best bits of what these coaches do and bring it back to develop your own style of playing because there shouldn't be, cricketers shouldn't be robots conditioned to do one thing, it's quite stacked some of the cricketers you see, cricketers you see today.

[00:11:30] And how they're playing all at the same, but the best ones tend to have this individuality, this individual flair, and they take the best bits of all the coaches. But what makes us different is that we're putting it together in a, in a package where we're focusing on everything at once and thinking about the long haul.

[00:11:46] It's not just about the one session we do. It's about the 12 weeks. It's the one year strategy. So we're looking at this idea of developing it from a physical and nutritional standpoint that ties into what you're doing at practice. And then we can work on the technical stuff here, [00:12:00] like all the other coaches do too.

[00:12:02] Josh Kennedy: Again, just to sort of wrap up, would you say it's the, we have a long term strategy, which again, potentially you don't see as much of in the traditional coaching. 

[00:12:10] James Breese: Yeah, that's exactly right. Take the same way as we work in the physical training plan. What's the long term strategy? If someone has to address their setup, Well, cool.

[00:12:18] Well, this is the issue. It's the day one. What's it going to look like in week 12, for example. So what are the stages we're going to do to address this? We have a singular focus to here now. It's not about, again, I see coaches do this time and time again. It's not about doing multiple things because it looks fun and it makes the game, makes the training session interesting.

[00:12:39] It's about focusing on what matters and what works. And what's going to help them develop as a cricketer. And that's the difference. That's more of a high performance mindset as opposed to have a jolly in 

[00:12:49] Josh Kennedy: a session. Fantastic. very much. That is the Cricket Matters coaching method. And that is it for today.

[00:12:54] Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. And if you would like our free training plan, then get yourself to [00:13:00] cricketmatters. com forward slash train.