Academy boosts World Cup hopes

© ECB

England women’s coach Richard Bates believes the facilities at the ECB National Academy have strengthened his side’s hopes of glory at the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa.

The 15-player squad have been preparing for the tournament with a number of training camps at the state-of-the-art facility in Loughborough.

They will also spend nine days acclimatising in Potchesfstroom in the build-up to the World Cup after arriving on Tuesday March 8, with the first practice match taking place against South Africa A on March 13.

England’s main rivals will be at an advantage coming off the back of their domestic seasons, but Bates has been delighted by England’s preparations.

He told ecb.co.uk: “The Academy has been invaluable really. Until now we’ve trained as a squad at Edgbaston, which itself has been a really good venue for us, but compare any facilities in the world to this and this will probably come out on top.

England coach Richard Bates

“It gives us a lot of flexibility in our training programme because of the size of the place, the IT equipment here and the resources which we share with the Academy. We’ve had five training camps here and it’s been perfect preparation.

“We’re the only team in the competition who are out of season so the other teams are going into it on the back of their season and therefore should be in form, which is why we’re going out there early to Potchesfstroom to acclimatise for nine days.

“But it’s not all bad and although we can’t train outside here, this facility has meant we can do the practice we want to do and get ourselves into shape before we go.

“With the flexibility of the space here it means we can do open nets and make the match-play scenarios a little bit more real rather than just straightforward nets.”

Being based at the Academy has also allowed the women’s team to benefit from coaching from the likes of Graham Gooch. The former England captain recently spent a week at Loughborough giving advice to both the England Under 19 team and some of the women’s squad on how to play spin.

Graham Gooch has been coaching the England players

“It was great for the girls to work with Graham and it’s an example of using the Academy,” explained Bates.

“It was simply a case of Andy Pick and his Under 19 boys had a training camp for a few days and we just shared the facility and shared the use of Graham Gooch. Four or five girls came down and learnt a lot from him.

“When we can tap into specialists like that, as well as Troy Cooley the bowling coach and our fielding coach Trevor Penney, on top of the network of coaches and the work we do, it makes a big difference.”

ECB fast bowling coach Cooley has worked with England’s bowlers to improve their techniques and Bates is grateful for his efforts, adding: “He’s made a big difference to the Academy, he’s made a big difference to England and we’re really fortunate that he’s able to work with our squad of girls as well.

“In the last few training camps he’s done two or three sessions with the girls. He’s done a lot of footage with them, analysed their bowling actions and tried to make them more efficient. There have been improvements already in a short space of time so it’s been much appreciated.”

Bowling coach Troy Cooley

Cooley said: “We’ve been able to capture some very good footage three-dimensionally through our elite fast bowling programme as well as two-dimensionally.

“We’ve basically looked at them, analysed their techniques with Richard and implemented some coaching programmes to assist them in their development as bowlers.”

As well as the training camps at the Academy, England’s women team have also benefited from exposure to many of the best coaches in the country.

The majority of the girls have become part of either a University Centre of Cricketing Excellence or County Academy programme which has enabled them to receive one-to-one coaching on a weekly basis.

Bates commented: “We made it a target of ours last year to link up as many of the girls as possible with the county academies and the UCCEs.

“Most of the academy directors have been more than willing to take them on so that every one of our squad has got a top quality one-to-one coach. This gives us a great network because we only get a certain amount of time to work with the players.

“I catch up with the girls regionally in small groups but the one-to-one coaching is on a weekly basis and compliments our programme nicely.”