Academy announces re-structure
Wed 4 Mar 2020
Ahead of Leicestershire County Cricket Club’s pre-season tour to Spain, the club can announce a re-structuring to its coaching and support staff setup for Leicestershire Young Cricketer’s performance cricket following a new arrival at Fischer County Ground.
January 2020 saw the arrival of former England Women’s Assistant Head Coach; Alastair Maiden which prompted a re-shuffle in the Academy department.
Maiden spoke on his new role of Head of Talent Pathway: “Hopefully what I can do and what I have got is a lot of experience of coaching players.
“When you’ve seen it work in lots of different ways for different types of people it gives you a bank of information that you can use to coach young people. The challenge then is working out what Leicestershire needs to achieve its aims of developing players to play for the county and using what knowledge I’ve got to help do this.”
Dave Whitmore, Talent Pathway Coach and EPP Head Coach is just one part of Maiden’s highly functional team.
Whitmore has been a part of the coaching staff at Leicestershire’s academy since 2012 on a part-time basis and has since worked in many roles before landing the EPP Head Coach role in 2018.
He is born and raised in Leicestershire and spent his years playing in the County Age Group Programme himself and now turns out for Kibworth CC.
Maiden spoke on Whitmore’s integral role within the Academy coaching set-up: “Dave [Whitmore] is vital because of his knowledge of the county.
“He is EPP Head Coach which means that his job is to be accountable for the confirmation process of young players that come into the County Age Group teams.
“He has really helped me get a grasp of what happens here, and he is a really good young coach as well.”
Another cog in the Academy coaching set up is Paul Johnson (Talent Pathway Coach) who comes with an invaluable amount of experience both as a player and coach for Nottinghamshire CCC in a career that spanned three decades at the Trent Bridge Club.
Maiden joked: “Jonno [Paul Johnson] has done every job that there is going in professional cricket!”
“He is a batting specialist by trade, but he has great knowledge as an all-round coach. He is a fantastic asset for us, and he will work great with getting players through and growing their knowledge.”
The final piece of the Academy coaching set up is former-Leicestershire spin bowler turned spin coach; Jigar Naik (Talent Pathway Coach).
Maiden said: “Jigar [Naik] is crucial because he has been there and done it.
“He has come through the process that these kids are trying to get through and that is really important – but that is not the reason why he is part of this team, although it is a nice side note. He is a passionate, fantastic coach and cares about the players. He is important to the club and the area and it is great to have him on board.”
Both Jigar and Paul have a responsibility to scout players in our wide range of diverse communities and bring them into our system which we want to be as open and inclusive as possible.
Maiden also outlined that each coach will be responsible for two age groups. Whitmore will be responsible for the Under 12’s and Under 14’s. Johnson will look after the Under 15’s and the development team, whilst Naik will be responsible for the Under 13’s and will start what will be the new Under 11’s programme at the Fischer County Ground.
He said: “They will then all assist each other as well as the Academy which means we will hopefully have two of these coaches at every practice session that we have going – that is the aim.”
They will also assist the professional staff whenever their schedule allows.
Maiden continued: “We are also very lucky to be supported throughout the pathway by Paul [Nixon], Tom [Smith] and Dips [Patel] who help out across the pathway whenever they can and especially within the academy set up.
“Phil de Freitas is also a great asset to the club and he is spending his time supporting myself with coaching the academy players. He has a wealth of experience and respect within the game and his knowledge of bowling particularly is great for me.
“He also takes great pride in scouting players from various parts of the country and has already in my time unearthed a number of high potential players.”
He concluded: “I like to think that every time we coach, we have in our minds what we want it to be like on a kids very first day at Leicestershire County Cricket Club.
“I like that analogy because you are always thinking about how exciting you want to make it for those kids and how fantastic you want their first day to be.
“That’s how I want them to think about constructing their sessions and making the kids feel like how they do on their first day, every day.”
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