My Dutch experience in 2011

I hopped off the plane in Wellington, New Zealand in September 2011 feeling relieved. After being away for six months living and coaching cricket in Holland it was a good feeling to get back to the wind, rain, hills, and Kiwi culture. I had been working abroad for the Ajax cricket club in a small University city called Leiden, in South Holland.

My first coaching experience in Holland was coaching a group of sixty teenagers at a local school who knew little about cricket. I was not to bothered about this and did my usual planning of how I would run the 90minute long session. Just as I was about to kick off the session, the teacher told me they don’t really understand English that well…. This threw me slightly. Somehow, I got through this with my demonstrations and setting up some basic modified games that were easily run without too many verbal instructions. Line cricket, non-stop cricket, and rounders, as well as a running between the wickets game were all used.

This first experience taught me to always have other plans up your sleeve. When good coaches get these types of challenges thrown at them, they must find a way to adapt as you have no choice. You can either give up (cancel the session) or you can get through the tough situation by remaining calm and level-headed. This was a good lesson learnt for me early on in my coaching career.

Another experience I had was when I was asked to coordinate a skills session for approximately three hundred kids from the local football club. These kids were not cricketers, so this was a wonderful opportunity for them to sample the game and hopefully fall in love with it. This time around I had at my disposal about fifteen coaches, so it was more about being well organised. We started off having kids at the fifteen stations that we had set up, then blowing a whistle to signal when they needed to move to the next station. This needed to be short, sharp, engaging and flow seamlessly which it did. I was pleased to get through this as it required significant planning and highlighted the importance of it for sessions to run well and the participants to be engaged in the activities.

My leading role at the club was coaching of the senior teams. This is what I really enjoyed as I had a chance to upskill players and make them better. The players were all keen to improve and put in the hard yards so the improvements in individuals were quite big. As much as I focused on my usual fundamentals as a coach of planning and communication my other big focus while in Holland was on skill acquisition. I wanted these players to get better at the basics of the game as this would put them in an advantageous position moving forward as players. It was not always easy doing this in a team environment so many individual sessions with them were required.

I loved my time in Holland with the club and players as they were so accommodating and had real passion for the game. It was a tough experience personally being away from all the things I love about home but by getting through it I found out a lot about myself.

1. I am hungry and willing to do what he takes to reach the top

2. I have resilience and an ability to get threw a tough situation without my performance or attitude being compromised

3. Being in an uncomfortable position or environment it gave me the best opportunity to learn and get better from that experience

This experience gave me great insight into the challenges and skills required to be an effective coach regardless of the level or environment coaching in. It helped shape me for future challenges that would be thrown at me as a coach and insured I was better prepared to deal with such challenges knowing I had forged a way of dealing through them with this experience in Holland.