‘You can’t be what you can’t see’

For those that have volunteered in the past on a Cricket Without Boundaries project the occasional frustrations over time keeping and the general pace of play will be familiar but often what goes unnoticed is the many ways that things happen faster and more efficiently than back home.

Today was a great example of how with some initiative, good communication and planning from the cricket association and the energy, enthusiasm of CWB great things can be achieved quickly.

I arrived at Gahanga Cricket Stadium on 9.25 on Saturday morning for a 9.30 start to run a day’s coach education with teachers from the regions we will be working with across the two-weeks we are in Rwanda.

Having run many such days over the years I was expecting to say hello to the couple of early risers and then grab a coffee as the rest drifted in over the next hour or so. Today however was different as there sat all 16 attendees taking in the stunning views out on to the pitch at Gahanga, notebooks in had ready to start.

5 minutes later we were on the field playing games and introducing the new coaches in how to run fun, safe and inclusive sessions. Despite an impressive thunderstorm cutting short the last hour great progress was made and it is always a real joy to see how quickly shy and nervous cricket newcomers can change into confident, loud and energetic coaches.

A mantra for all our coach education is ‘Less talking, more playing’ and all had grabbed this concept by the end. As was seen in the afternoon as we played different fun games after the morning has been more focused on the technical skills of cricket.

Coach education alone however serves no purpose unless the new coaches are given the opportunity and equipment needed to play the game then nothing can happen. This is why it was such a pleasure to see 2 of the newly trained coaches waiting for us at the first school we visited on Monday morning.

In a week when I have been reading a lot from the ECB and ICC on the lack of female coaches seeing both Egidie Uwimana and Uwase Nadia use the new skills they had recently developed to run batting and catching stations for around 250 boys and girls in pretty limited space was refreshing indeed.

Finding and developing strong female leaders that can inspire and enthuse more girls to play cricket is a must. ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ in watching these two at work I am sure that we have found two who given the right support will inspire many in the years to come.

Lee Booth