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Background: Motor control and skill acquisition research have contributed greatly to understanding the learning process in sport, but very little of this knowledge has been applied in practice over the past fifty years. The characteristics of expertise in the two major cricket skills, batting and bowling, are well established but the training environments used to develop them are yet to be characterised. Recommendations on the how the ball is delivered (feed), decision making, task variability and information sources for skill development in cricket have been made previously in research. To promote skills which transfer between the training and performance environments, tasks should maintain the connection between the person, their task and the environment. Coaches have found it difficult to apply complex learning designs to their practice because the underpinning concepts remain unclear. Demystifying evidence-based practice for skill development in cricket is needed to make research knowledge more accessible for coaches. Purpose: Given club level cricket (amateur) is the stepping-stone of the talent development pathway for junior representative players pursuing elite status, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of skill development practices at this level and identify means of improvement. Methods: A categorical assessment tool was developed to assess 21 training sessions performed during an amateur women's cricket team throughout the 2018/19 season. We assessed how the ball was delivered (feed), decision making elements, variability and sources of information available to ascertain the representativeness of each training session according to published research on skill development and expertise. The tool featured a scoring range (0--3) with maximum scores per discipline of 12 for bowling and 15 for batting. Key performance indicators (KPI), outlined by the head coach, were also collected during the season to assess game performance and explore any connections with training design. Results: A lack of variability in training design between the 21 sessions performed (<0.5 units on 0-3 scale) did not allow for a correlational analysis with game performance. In contrast, game KPIs were achieved sporadically throughout the season. The most representative training elements were provided for bowling feed (target), decision making and variability, while batting feed (type) and variability also scored well on the assessment tool. The maximum score for representativeness for bowling or batting was not reached, and training design remained largely unchanged throughout the season despite changes in match type, competition phase and consistent low scores in some elements. Conclusions: Some elements of representative learning design were apparent in this amateur cricket setting but only in discrete areas of training. Despite changes in the competition phase and match type, there was a lack of adaptation in training design. Future research is needed to evaluate the principles of representative training design and their effect on cricket skill development and match performance. A more sensitive categorical assessment tool may also be necessary to detect subtle changes in training design.

Talent identification and development systems (TIDS) adopt a deterministic perspective (i.e. athletes' future state/performances can be predicted by observations of their initial state/performance), which encourages early identification and specialisation in sport. In this framework, the main aim of sport systems is to enhance predictability and reduce uncertainty, by investigating the causal relationship between entering a talent pathway and becoming an expert performer. Generally, athletes who display ideal body proportions and attain certain performance standards in early developmental stages are labelled as talented (i.e. they display the potential to succeed) and are selected by TIDS, which afford them a superior developmental opportunity (i.e. better training facilities, certified coaching staff, and higher competition levels), to realise their potential. A deterministic approach, thus, (a) sees talent as a fixed capacity, whereby future successful athletes can be identified early (i.e. early identification); and (b) considers entering at an earlier age in a talent pathway a pre-requisite for sporting success (i.e. early specialisation). Contrary to deterministic expectations, recent research has highlighted how being considered talented from the early stages does not guarantee a better likelihood of successfully achieve senior sporting success. In this paper, taking ideas from ecological anthropology, a new probabilistic approach is proposed which considers TIDS as a process (i.e. being talented is about remaining responsive to what you could become), dialogical (i.e. athlete selection and development are not done in isolation, but both influenced by sociocultural constraints), and open-ended (i.e. unpredictability related to future outcomes). If sport systems embrace the uncertainty of developmental pathways opportunities arise to participate in conversations across and within TIDS to support systemic change. We conclude by proposing four key foundations of any probabilistic TIDS: give sport back to kids, ethos of amateurism, delaying selection processes, and early diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Training task design with amateur female cricketers has typically comprised of deconstructed and monotonous approaches which may not maximise skill development. Clear guidelines to improve these practices in this cohort are lacking. The training environment should provide the same sources of information, decisions and variability as matches in order to prepare players for the match environment, which can be achieved through representative learning design (RLD). An RLD training intervention designed to promote skill development was performed over five weeks with two amateur female cricket teams to provide a framework for community coaches at the foundation stage of cricket. Skill development was recorded as changes in skilled actions for batting and bowling, with cognitions coded as themes for each skill during training. Six of ten batters and seven of eight bowlers exhibited increases in skill development ranging between 7–49%. Changes in batting and bowling behaviour improved substantially between moderately and extensively designed sessions. Batters' thoughts shifted from their own skill execution to objectives, while bowlers focused on their opponent's execution. Moderate to extensive RLD appears to promote skill development in amateur cricketers, making it a viable option for coach education and training design at the foundation level of cricket. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]