Americas Cricket Academy, St Kitts 2011

The first ever ICC Americas Academy took place earlier this year at the Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts. Argentina's cricketing neighbours had to fly for anything between 3 and 13 hours to get to the camp. The mix of cultures and languages from North, South, Central America and the Caribbean created some pretty interesting dressing room banter, as well as plenty of exciting cricket.

ICC Americas Academy squad

The best fifteen players aged 18 to 24, from the seven Americas High Performance countries, Canada, USA, Bermuda, Suriname, Argentina, Bahamas, Cayman Islands and two from St Kitts and Nevis were invited to the Academy. The Academy was run by Andy Pick ,the Americas High Performance Manager, with three coaches working in specialist areas - John Abrahams (batting) Chris Brown (spin bowling) and myself (wicket keeping and fielding).

Each day the group started and ended with a sports psychology session from David Scott who used to work for West Indies Cricket and now works with National Hockey Team, the Montreal Canadians. These sessions focussed the mind using techniques which are already employed all over the world by professional players in test nations.

Argentines Alejo Tissera and Agustin Husain
 start the day with a visualising sport psychology session

No one really knew what would happen when players from Associate and Affiliate nations were put in a professional cricket environment for ten intense 12 hour days that stretched them to the limit, but they all made it through to the end with flying colours.

Drills Session at Warner Park

It was remarkable to see players absorb so much information so easily and develop so quickly. They saw it as a chance of a lifetime and not a single player grumbled at the searing heat which they were asked to train in or at the demanding schedule. Most of these players have never seen a test ground let alone played on one. 

Middle practice at Warner Park

The players finished the Academy with a one day match against a St Kitts and Nevis XI. In a closely fought contest the Americas fell agonisingly short by nine runs. There was very little difference in talent between the teams, however the difference in cricket awareness and experience was there for all to see.  The only way to bridge this gap is by playing lots of high-quality matches, and that is very hard to achieve in Associate and Affiliate nations.

Batting Coach John Abraham passes on his knowledge

I genuinely wonder how good these guys could be if they were brought up in test nations, where cricket is an everyday occurrence and not a once in-a-lifetime experience.