“OK, we’ve got video playback now—no need to guess. We can see your movements, patterns, bat paths, contact points. Happy days.”
Who said it first, and when? My guess—around 2000. Before then, coaches relied on their eyes, gut feelings, and recall memory. Pushback was less—they had to be right; no one dared question the coach. Accuracy of diagnosis? Questionable.
Pity the coaches who still maintain: “They need to feel it first.”
I’ve always veered toward reverse-engineering. A player doesn’t play spin great. OK, what next? Watch them play in-game, see what works now, then go to the filing cabinet to pull what you need to add layers around what they have. Drill it. Rep it. And slowly the compounding skill-acquisition curve starts to climb.
Repeating new techniques is an important part of skill-building. Discovering them shouldn’t be. Video is critical—so is watching live games and scenarios.
Coaches have realised that using video and data to see what’s actually happening—rather than what they think they see and feel—is a far stronger starting point in conversations with players. Video is real. Data is real. They can be trusted. It shouldn’t end there—I wrote about vibe coaching last weekend—but it’s a much stronger foundation for building and improving a player’s game.
Tools are a trending word in AI. LLMs, no matter how smart, can’t function effectively without access to tools that help them solve problems and deliver real solutions.
Coaches need tools too. And as those tools get smarter, the coaching questions will get sharper.
Get unstuck. If not, your players will be stuck with you.
Nick
P.S. I’m helping build a cricket analytics app. You can read more here.
Nick,
good luck with your cricket analytics app!
(I seem to remember reading a similar article about one being used in junior basketball).
True - the data and the video might never be able to replicate the feel - but they can give/provoke the feels.