Day 2 dawned clear and surprisingly chilly for the time of year and yours truly once again had a fail from day 1 as I again forgot to bring my CWB hoodie! So after a few moments of chattering teeth we began the second day of Coach Education with our first group of enthusiastic teachers.
Led expertly by Lee and Greg we started with a game of cricket before proceeding to more fun relay warm ups before splitting off into teams to do some more micro-coaching.
As on the first day there was more hilarity at some of the drills we were getting the teachers to do as well as serious concentration on their part as they tried to take all the information in and understand all the drills we were getting them involved in.
Halfway through the morning some of the coaches departed to a secondary school where a fun session was had by all along to the cries of Abstain, Be Faithful, Condomise and Testing where
I am sure Condomise was shouted particularly loudly and enthusiastically! We all reconvened at lunchtime at a supermarket named Choppies for our lunch which included a rather tasty discovery of chutney fruit flavoured crisps which have since become rather a hit with the entire group!
As on the first day we split in the afternoon where I headed to a primary school near Tonata where we had been all morning and somehow I volunteered to do the Introduction to the session before realising the number of children which we had (namely 200!)
After a slightly chaotic opening we all manned our stations and did some catching, throwing, bowling and batting with the kids in climbing temperatures in spite of this great fun was had by all with the coaches growing in confidence amid cries of ABC CWB. At the end of the session we headed back into Francistown to do an after school club at a private school however not before a few of us became rather popular with the kids which caused a slight delay as they all wanted to play with our rather sweaty hair.
As we eventually left all we saw was lots of smiling faces so an afternoon session well done.
Our hearts missed a beat on the way to Francistown as Clement gave the driver the direction to “Head straight for a wall” but we arrived in one piece in the end. We had the school cricket team already awaiting our arrival where they were quickly put through their paces with Robbie and Lee running an excellent fielding session after which we challenged them to a 5 over slogfest.
Jo was elected our captain and won the toss. We fielded first and began well. Hannah playing her first ever official cricket match bowled the second over and maintained a tight line outside off stump. After that sadly we couldn’t maintain the pressure ending up chasing 64 off 5 overs. Our resident married couple opened and got us off to a solid start but sadly we fell a couple of runs short at the end.
Day 3 dawned bright and distinctly warmer than the previous 2 days. After a quick breakfast it was back to Tonata to finish off the Coach Education as well as another Secondary School for some of the team. Greg led the Coach Education session at Tonata as Lee was at a Teacher Training College beginning another Coach Education session with a fresh group of about 20 teachers.
For us at Tonata high catching was on the menu with a few spanners thrown in the works such as spinning around and touching ears and nose whilst focussing on the ball in the air.
Challenging in the extreme as myself and Andy C found out as we both ended up on our bums!
After more micro-coaching which we got the teachers to lead we had a quick break before Greg and a couple of others headed off to another Secondary School whilst I introduced the teachers to the basics of umpiring in the form of a pairs match.
Adam did the scoring and quickly spotted what everyone has always known…namely that umpires can’t count, ooops. Hannah and Andy then presented all the teachers with their certificates and after the usual photos we headed off.
After lunch we split again to visit 2 more Primary Schools with things getting nice and toasty. We decided on relays and a game of rapid fire with a slightly smaller number of children than yesterday. All the children had a great time despite the heat with some very competitive competition going on in the crossfire game which led to several of the coaches diving for cover at times whilst trying to reset the stumps.
After our session ended we went to pick up the team from the other Schools and were just in time to witness a phenomenal wrap up with some fantastic singing from the children. I think we may need to learn some Botswanan songs before too long!
Ben
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