A French coach talking cricket...
Stefan Pichowski
ECAD Chairman
Mobile (Voice/SMS) 07967-174391
Email - secretaryecad@hotmail.co.uk
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Imagine the scenario when a new foreign coach takes charge of a Premiership football club, the coach cannot speak a word of English and requires an interpreter. The British media would write a mockery of the situation because of the travesty on the lack of communication between the players and staff.
Now cast your mind to a deaf cricketer listening to a hearing coach. The coach is providing excellent and technical advice on the cricketers' technique and mindset of his style. How much would the cricketer understand if the cricket coach was talking French? A French coach talking cricket. It is unheard of but for most deaf cricketers, who rely mainly on their natural talents, struggles to understand English or for that matter, a French cricket coach!
As the picture shows, the deaf cricketer can visually pick the technique of playing a back foot shot but the picture does not tell you the more technical aspects of batting, of holding a strong grip, picking the ball early, triggering feet movement and much more technical information.
The hearing cricketer will develop their game more because of the input of information provided to his or her hearing ears.
A farcical incident happened during the recent National Indoor Cup Day, when our excellent and experienced Head Coach, Ron Young, advised some of the grass-root/domestic players to play a game of indoor cricket. Ron provided excellent advice to inform the batters to place the ball in the gaps onto the side walls and running between the wickets. A batsman can be caught off almost every single wall. So it was important for the batsmen to play the ball safely into the ground and onto the side nettings.
Sure enough as soon as the first match started, almost every single batsman on one side, attempted to slog the ball out of the hall and only to be caught off the side nettings!!
Lack of awareness played a huge part in this and despite the support of a sign language interpreter and deaf awareness, there are always going to be barriers to overcome the communication difficulties such as the French football coach joining a Premiership football club to coach a style of play.
Yours in sport
Stefan Pichowski
ECAD Chairman