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Ideas for Game Scenarios

I ran a coaching session on Sunday where I took along a number of handwritten cards, from which the kids (U11s) could randomly choose "Super Over", "Bowl Off" or "Game Scenario". If they chose the latter, I had another set of cards they could choose from "Wicket Target", "Run Target", "Run Target - but boundaries don't count".Finally, they then draw from some more cards - runs (20-30), max wickets (1-3), overs (3-5).Each game scenario lasted around 10-20 mins, so in our session, we had time for about 4 or 5 scenarios. They appeared to enjoy it, but most of them said they wanted to bowl/bat individually for longer! Kids, eh?The idea behind these if to get them thinking about batting intelligently - rotating the strike, keeping the score ticking over, managing achievable run rates, etc. It's also a chance to give some of them some experience at captaining and having to make key decisions (bowling and batting order, how to place a field for different scenarios).Any ideas for variations I could try would be welcome. My session lasts for 2 hours including warm ups and any specific exercises I want to do beforehand.

Matt OTooleCoach, England

1 answer

ANSWERS

Neville YoungCoach, Australia

You seem to have covered most things Matt and it sounds like the kids are enjoying your sessions. The only thing I can add is get something together for throwing and catching. Kids love throwing things at other things. 11 year olds are also still a bit wary about catching a hard ball, so it pays to introduce them to different types of catching practice to instill confidence in their ability. If you can work catching and throwing together then you will save time by practicing 2 things at once. Good luck, you sound like you are doing a good job.