Is it possible to teach cricket to Indian children in a way which blends the 'Australian style of coaching' and the 'Indian way'? That is exactly the idea with which Cricket India Academy, a network of coaching academies in the country, was started in 2009. The Cricket India Academy is directly authorised by the governing body for cricket in Australia - Cricket Australia, who are responsible for drafting the Cricket Education Program (CEP). According to Cricket Australia, the CEP has been formulated in a way to provide a streamlined and sequential approach to coaching children in a curriculum based training program. The CEP has been implemented across training centres in Mumbai and Jaipur, and the latest centre - called Inside Edge Sportainment - has been started in Chennai. An academy started by 4 youngsters, Inside Edge has received the Certificate of Partnership from Cricket Australia and has started coaching camps for the coming season.
Talking to cricbuzz.com, one of the founders of Inside Edge, Sudarshan Rangan, spoke in detail about the academy and how it started.
"The Australians thought that everyone in India knew about cricket, but they wanted a more streamlined approach to training. That's how they entered cricket in India. We were on the same page as well. We failed to make it big in cricket personally, and when we were introspecting on what went wrong, we realised the need for a more streamlined approach to coaching. In a way, this is a classroom based education; it's almost like an incorporation of sport (cricket) in daily education"
The training program, says Sudarshan, is different from a normal coaching camp at various levels. The CEP provides sequential training where the children will know what's next in their cricketing development, much like in a classroom based model.
How did Inside Edge, being an inexperienced academy, convince a body as big as Cricket Australia? Sudarshan says it was not about convincing anyone. "We didn't have to convince CA as such, we just told them the ideas - that we wanted grass-root training to be professionally done. We met Martin Gleeson and told him that there were many schools which showed interest but didn't have the facilities. If we could bring in the facilities and their expertise together, we could develop a successful model."
One of the challenges in developing such an idea could be the relative inexperience of the founding members. Srinivasan, one of the co-founders of the academy, acknowledges that, but says that it did, in a way, work in their favour as well.
"Every single day was a learning experience for us. We are absolute amateurs in this field, compared to other coaches who have played for the state or at a higher level. That way we didn't have an identity, the only identity we had was Cricket Australia. We had to spend 7-8 months on just understanding the model, because we didn't want to create "just another product". We're not even breaking even this year, but we're ready to face the initial losses. "
"There were a lot of practical problems as well. We finalised the deal towards the end of February and we wanted to kick start the summer program this year. That left us with only 1 month to market our product, and that collided with the board exams. These were some of the challenges we faced, but somehow, the Cricket Australia brand worked."
Hussey shares his philosophies
The role models for the CEP - Brett Lee and Michael Hussey - could not have been chosen better, for both are widely respected cricketers in India. Michael Hussey was present at the event conducted by the academy on Thursday, May 3rd in Chennai where he interacted with young aspirants. Hussey interacted with the kids in a jovial manner despite travelling half the globe from West Indies to Chennai for his IPL duties. He shared a few coaching tips with the kids and later patiently answered some of their queries regarding his career. When one of the aspirants asked Hussey about the sobriquet 'Mr. Cricket', he recalled the incident in England where Andrew Flintoff gave him the tag. "It started in England when I was playing a County match. It was a cold, wet and miserable day and nobody wanted to be there, except for me. I was loving it and I wanted to bat every ball. That's when Flintoff said "this guy loves cricket more than anyone, he must be Mr. Cricket". That's how it started."
Even while answering the questions, Hussey, known to be a complete team-man, made sure that he passed on his philosophies about the game and stressed on the importance of team before individual. When asked about his ability to bat at various positions, he replied "it's just whatever is the best for the team. You've got to adapt for the team. The team is the most important thing and you should always play for the team" Hussey even cited Subramaniam Badrinath as an example, something that the kids from Chennai could easily relate to. "...someone like Badrinath for example, sometimes he opens the batting, sometimes he's number 3 and in other times he is number 8.
The interdependence among different boards is increasing rapidly with time, and the Cricket India Academy is an example of how the interactions have reached the grass-root level. Hussey summed up the intentions of the academy, saying it's important to develop a strong cricketing culture.
"Australia is very proud of their cricketing culture. We know that people in India, especially kids, love cricket more than in any other place in the world. If we could help these kids and see them grow into better people and better players, it would give the people from Australia a lot of happiness. It's very important to have a strong cricketing culture around the world. We have started this program in India, and we hope to take it around the world and make cricket a well loved sport
Is it possible to teach cricket to Indian children in a way which blends the 'Australian style of coaching' and the 'Indian way'? That is exactly the idea with which Cricket India Academy, a network of coaching academies in the country, was started in 2009. The Cricket India Academy is directly authorised by the governing body for cricket in Australia - Cricket Australia, who are responsible for drafting the Cricket Education Program (CEP). According to Cricket Australia, the CEP has been formulated in a way to provide a streamlined and sequential approach to coaching children in a curriculum based training program. The CEP has been implemented across training centres in Mumbai and Jaipur, and the latest centre - called Inside Edge Sportainment - has been started in Chennai. An academy started by 4 youngsters, Inside Edge has received the Certificate of Partnership from Cricket Australia and has started coaching camps for the coming season.
Talking to cricbuzz.com, one of the founders of Inside Edge, Sudarshan Rangan, spoke in detail about the academy and how it started.
"The Australians thought that everyone in India knew about cricket, but they wanted a more streamlined approach to training. That's how they entered cricket in India. We were on the same page as well. We failed to make it big in cricket personally, and when we were introspecting on what went wrong, we realised the need for a more streamlined approach to coaching. In a way, this is a classroom based education; it's almost like an incorporation of sport (cricket) in daily education"
The training program, says Sudarshan, is different from a normal coaching camp at various levels. The CEP provides sequential training where the children will know what's next in their cricketing development, much like in a classroom based model.
How did Inside Edge, being an inexperienced academy, convince a body as big as Cricket Australia? Sudarshan says it was not about convincing anyone. "We didn't have to convince CA as such, we just told them the ideas - that we wanted grass-root training to be professionally done. We met Martin Gleeson and told him that there were many schools which showed interest but didn't have the facilities. If we could bring in the facilities and their expertise together, we could develop a successful model."
One of the challenges in developing such an idea could be the relative inexperience of the founding members. Srinivasan, one of the co-founders of the academy, acknowledges that, but says that it did, in a way, work in their favour as well.
"Every single day was a learning experience for us. We are absolute amateurs in this field, compared to other coaches who have played for the state or at a higher level. That way we didn't have an identity, the only identity we had was Cricket Australia. We had to spend 7-8 months on just understanding the model, because we didn't want to create "just another product". We're not even breaking even this year, but we're ready to face the initial losses. "
"There were a lot of practical problems as well. We finalised the deal towards the end of February and we wanted to kick start the summer program this year. That left us with only 1 month to market our product, and that collided with the board exams. These were some of the challenges we faced, but somehow, the Cricket Australia brand worked."
Hussey shares his philosophies
The role models for the CEP - Brett Lee and Michael Hussey - could not have been chosen better, for both are widely respected cricketers in India. Michael Hussey was present at the event conducted by the academy on Thursday, May 3rd in Chennai where he interacted with young aspirants. Hussey interacted with the kids in a jovial manner despite travelling half the globe from West Indies to Chennai for his IPL duties. He shared a few coaching tips with the kids and later patiently answered some of their queries regarding his career. When one of the aspirants asked Hussey about the sobriquet 'Mr. Cricket', he recalled the incident in England where Andrew Flintoff gave him the tag. "It started in England when I was playing a County match. It was a cold, wet and miserable day and nobody wanted to be there, except for me. I was loving it and I wanted to bat every ball. That's when Flintoff said "this guy loves cricket more than anyone, he must be Mr. Cricket". That's how it started."
Even while answering the questions, Hussey, known to be a complete team-man, made sure that he passed on his philosophies about the game and stressed on the importance of team before individual. When asked about his ability to bat at various positions, he replied "it's just whatever is the best for the team. You've got to adapt for the team. The team is the most important thing and you should always play for the team" Hussey even cited Subramaniam Badrinath as an example, something that the kids from Chennai could easily relate to. "...someone like Badrinath for example, sometimes he opens the batting, sometimes he's number 3 and in other times he is number 8.
The interdependence among different boards is increasing rapidly with time, and the Cricket India Academy is an example of how the interactions have reached the grass-root level. Hussey summed up the intentions of the academy, saying it's important to develop a strong cricketing culture.
"Australia is very proud of their cricketing culture. We know that people in India, especially kids, love cricket more than in any other place in the world. If we could help these kids and see them grow into better people and better players, it would give the people from Australia a lot of happiness. It's very important to have a strong cricketing culture around the world. We have started this program in India, and we hope to take it around the world and make cricket a well loved sport
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