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CRICKET


National Cricket Performance Centre


Crispin Andrews visits the National Cricket Performance Centre at Loughborough University and finds out how coaches are developing England’s world-class stars of the future


national cricket without getting injured, the team presented the national govern- ing body (NGB) with another problem to solve: How to bat in test matches on the subcontinent. But while England captain Andrew Strauss and company turn to ‘reactive’ camps in India and ‘naughty boy’ nets in Sri Lanka, the ECB are cur- rently taking a more progressive stance in developing England’s up-and-coming players of the future. Today, the ECB’s England Development


N


Programme (EDP) is focused on ensuring the national team’s future success and, at the National Cricket Performance Centre at Loughborough University, some of the


o sooner had the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) de- veloped a crop of fast bowlers who were able to play inter-


country’s top coaches and support staff are using state-of-the-art facilities and tech- nology to make sure that this happens. “We want to give every potential


world-class cricketer every opportunity to develop the skills to perform at the highest level possible,” says ECB science and medicine manager Dr Simon Timson.


INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION The best of these players, when ready, move into the EDP, represent England Lions and, if they make the grade, even- tually move into the full test, one day or Twenty/20 side. Since 2003, when the centre opened,


Matt Prior, Stuart Broad, Ravi Bopara and Alastair Cook have progressed through the whole pathway. But since 2010, when the ECB revamped the programme, the


EDP is now solely about individual long- term player development: Results and teams no longer take priority. Timson says that the side took only one


full-time spinner on January’s Under-19 tour to Bangladesh on turning wickets. “The tour is part of a plan, we picked the best 15 cricketers we thought could help England win in six years time, not a team to win a test series in Bangladesh.”


INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE Today, the music of U2 and Queen is blaring out from speakers in the prac- tice area, but the ECB hasn’t hired out its performance centre for an 80s disco. The players on the EDP are preparing for their tour of Australia and coaches play music to distract them – therefore aiding their concentration.


England players during a performance training session at Loughborough


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