After spending the last couple of days witnessing the fruits of the CWB and Rwandan Cricket Association’s development work over the last 5 years in action, the team wake to get back to the relative chaos of coaching. On the bus, there does seem a hint of morning-after-Sundowner-blues and the devastating news that Planet was closed last night has hit Lee particularly hard. I believe talk of a syndicate takeover has already been lighting up international communication channels.
Collecting Tall Eric on the way, we arrive at Efotec School where negotiations with the security guard begin. Delivering at the school could well go down as one of the strangest experiences of my burgeoning cricket coaching career, and i’m sure that’s the same for the rest of the team regardless of experience.
Just as we are eventually allowed through the school gates, Lee delivers the slightly surprising news that the area we’ll be using is actually usually home to a resident herd of cattle, and therefore the surface we’ll be using may well have a few patches to avoid (slightly toned down Lee’s eloquent but slightly more contrite description). Me, being the Africa newbie i am think he must be either pulling our legs, or at worst over-exaggerating. However……..
Sure enough the field is absolutely littered with evidence of a pretty healthy diet for our bovine friends. Jon suggests a session of skills and so we each set about claiming the least affected area for our respective stations. Luckily, the herd have decided to sleep in this morning.
So I take batting; now I haven’t done an awful lot of batting coaching to date during my time out here so I am already aware that my straight drive may well be a little rusty. This becomes only more evident when my first demonstration goes three feet wide of where i actually intended for it to go (still between the cones however, so it does technically count as a good example to copy).
With the children, who as now seems par-for-the-course are an absolute delight, seemingly not at all fazed by the condition of the field the remainder of the session passes largely without incident and we leave amidst a cloud of wet wipes and sanitising hand gel. The plan is for two sessions at two schools after lunch.
We arrive at the first school a touch early and await Young Eric to join us; the resident school coach. Now, I’m sure we’ve all experienced some heavy rain in others countries? Well let me tell you, all of a sudden the heavens opened and it started raining like I’ve rarely experienced. Within minutes the large, flat school field we would be using was turned into a paddling pool, leaving us no choice but to abandon plans and return to Solace Guesthouse in the hope the rain abates in time for us to still make our 16:00 appointment.
Unfortunately it doesn’t. This is especially bad news for Ben because it means we return to our ongoing game of two-deck rummy, which it turns out he’s really rather unlucky at.
When it rained earlier in the week, we were reminded that whilst it may be frustrating from a coaching viewpoint, the country has been through a particularly dry spell of late and therefore this rain will be welcomed by most.
Tomorrow we start our Kinihira burst. We’re promised amazing views, amazing tea and more amazing young prospective cricketers and lives to affect.
Rich