KCA Coaches Panel Gears Up
The panel hopes to make inroads in local schools and Create An environment for cricket in their sports curriculum

Mr. Haseeb, Mr.Ghaour and Mr. Joude

The Kuwait Cricket Association Coaches Panel continues to hold its regular monthly meetings with great interest and participation from its members. The Coaches Panel looks after all the coaching and training interests of KCA for preparing national teams for the various International tournaments organized by ICC and ACC.  These tournaments are played at the Senior level as well as U-19, U-17 and U-15 age categories comprising of teams from Asia & Far East countries which are members of the Asian Cricket Council. These meetings provide a platform to all the registered coaches to get together once a month and share information regarding development and advances in cricket. The meeting is always attended by KCA observers who provide the necessary feedback on upcoming events and identify requirements from the coaches. The panel has 27 active members at present. The group comprises of highly qualified Cricket Australia (CA) & ACC certified coaches as well as beginners who are keen to receive similar training through KCA and guidance from the senior coaches. The Coaches Panel comprises of a 3 member Management Committee (MC) headed by Sameer Desai who is the Chairman. He is a CA Level 2 certified coach and has received numerous other cricket coaching training including CA Specialist Batting, Bowling, Fielding and Wicket keeping, ICC High Performance Coaching, and CA Level 1 Coach Educator training. He has also completed the ACC Sports Medicine and Fitness training program. Sameer has had the distinction of being the coach of the Kuwait national seniors and U-19 teams. The General Secretary of the panel is Kaleem ul-Hasan who is also a CA Level 2 certified coach. He has been the coach of Kuwait U-15 teams on number of occasions. Nawazish Ali is the Treasurer and he has completed his CA Level 1 Coaches course. Among the members there are 3 other CA Level 2 certified coaches who are Arjuna Amaratunga, Tariq Rasool and Murli Kutticode. Both Tariq and Murli are now back from Malaysia from a week long Level 1 Coach Educator training program. Kaleem and Arjuna have already completed theirs in Bangkok last year. The Coaches Panel is proud to have two Kuwait nationals among their members who have also received vast training from ACC. Emad Al-Jassam is a CA Level 1 certified coach and has also completed numerous ACC Sports Medicine and Fitness training courses. He has accompanied Kuwait national squads for various Seniors and junior age category ACC tournaments either as Physio or Manager. Ahmed Safar is the other Kuwaiti national who is a member. He along with Emad has attended the CA High performance coaching course conducted by no other than the world famous Bob Woolmer. The ambition of the panel is to provide training and certification for all its active members from ACC/CA through KCA approval. The goal is to have as many certified coaches as possible in Kuwait so that they can impart training at various centers, sports clubs, playgrounds and schools. The panel hopes to make inroads in local schools and create an environment for cricket in their sports curriculum. KCA has promised full support along with provision of all necessary sports equipment to facilitate grooming of cricket in public schools and local sports clubs.
The meetings form the basis of cricket and coaching related information sharing, feedback from coaches on ACC training programs they recently attended, discussions on tours and lessons learned, player performances, international and domestic tournaments, coaching camps, coaching issues and coaches concerns, etc. During last month’s meeting the MC announced a Level 1 Coaches course being organized by ACC in Thailand from 23-28 March 2006. The MC took nominations from interested members to submit to KCA for final selection. Later each member shared an individual coaching/cricket experience which ensued highly interesting follow up discussions. Likewise December meeting highlights included a talk from Murli who shared his experiences from the ACC Level 2 coach certification course he attended recently in Singapore. Arjuna gave a short summary on the Specialist Fielding and Wicket keeping Course he and Sameer attended in Chiang Mai, Thailand. A brief summary of the senior teams tour to Kuala Lumpur for the ACC Trophy 2006 was presented by Sameer who was the coach of the team. The strengths and weaknesses were highlighted and the causes of failure were brought forth. Kaleem shared his experiences as coach of the U-15 team which participated in the Elite division tournament in Malaysia.
Mr. Asad Baig, DCE International Affairs KCA, who routinely attends the Coaching Panel meetings as a keen observer provided an update on the upcoming events calendar. Of primary importance are the ACC U-19 tournament in August and the first ever ACC Twenty20 tournament for the top 10 ACC non test playing ACC countries. Kuwait will be the proud host of this tournament and KCA was lauded for it’s extraordinary efforts in acquiring this event for Kuwait. Asad Baig urged the Coaches Panel for an active role and the need for a massive effort from the coaches to prepare highly skilled players and best teams for these tournaments. The Coaches Panel has taken an initiative to frame a coaching program outlining a systematic process to commence the training of all eligible players in Kuwait as soon as possible. KCA will provide full support to this program and monitor its progress accordingly.
The panel is open for new memberships and they welcome all interested persons to join the activities, particularly the technology update, coaching methodology and field sessions that the panel plans to hold during the current calendar. Interested persons may contact the General Secretary Kaleem on mobile 6460496 or email at cpcrickwt@yahoo.com.