A busy time in the Performance Pathway - Geographic Split | Education | Ethnicity

The last 20 months has been a challenging time for all, but it has also provided us all with time to evaluate and evoke change.  Over the past 6 months we have taken the time to 'reboot' our Performance Pathway after a hugely disruptive time.  Youth Development cricket and County Age Group programmes are no different and we have used this time to review, reflect and re-evaluate these levels of the pathway. 

During the end of the summer, September, and October we have assessed over 840 players, both male and female to participate in both Youth Development training and County Age Group training. 

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CRICKET

Youth Development cricket is the first step onto the performance pathway towards County selection.  From this winter onwards we have decided to refine the number of development centres we run from five down to two, as we felt running five centres diluted our ability to provide meaningful coaching and competition. We will now have up to 32 players training across two Youth Development centres at each of the following age groups: 

Boys – U10, U11, U12, U13, U14 

Girls – U11, U13, U15

Each player will receive high quality coaching during the winter where all players will be working from the same Talent Development Framework, ensuring they are working on similar technical, tactical, mental, and physical areas of the game. 

After the winter programme, the next phase of cricket for our Youth Development players will come during May half-term.  All 32 players from each age group, across the two Youth Development centres, will come together for additional training.  During these sessions all 32 players will be coached, observed, and assessed again enabling coaches to further reduce down each age group to a 14 player Youth Development Cricket squad for the summer.  Each summer squad will play between 4-6 matches against appropriate opposition.  

Players who aren’t selected for the YDC summer squads will be encourage to go back to their clubs and play as much cricket as possible to aid their further development.

 

COUNTY AGE GROUP CRICKET

As a County, we expect to deliver a full winter and summer programme after a very disrupted last 20 months. 

We appreciate that all players have missed out on some important development during the last two years and couple of winters. 

During this period the ECB have undertaken a full competitions review across the County Age Group programme. The result of this reveiw means that this year we will be running sides at: 

Boys – U12, U13, U14, U15, U16 & U18

Girls – U15 & U18

*Age groups in bold are now National Competition age groups.  We will see the return of our Under 16 boys age group which will replace our previous Development XI which catered for Under 16's & 17's.

Another major change for us here in Devon is that our Under 18's will no longer play against any First Class Counties in a competition.  They will now be grouped with other Nationals Counties of a similar standard.  

 

The ECB also plan to undertake a review of the County Womens & Girls Compeitions over the next 9 months.

What does the County Age Group progarmme look this winer and next summer?

Each child (14 per squad) on the County Age Group programme will receive 22 hours contact time over the winter – technical, tactical, mental, and physical skills delivered by experienced Level 3 and 4 coaches. Players will be expected to be involved in, and contribute to, individual Player Development Plans and take responsibility for Strength and Conditioning programmes.

Over the summer months each age group will play 10 – 15 days of cricket, in a mixture of training days. friendlies and National Competition matches and our Under 12's and 13's will return to attending festival weeks at Kings School Taunton.  

A new addition next summer will be the live streaming of some County Age group matches and associated performance analysis.  The finer details are yet to be concluded, but this will add an additional and important layer of information for our players and coaches.

 

ADDITONAL INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PERFORMANCE PATHWAY PLAYERS