Our aims within our performance programme are to promote excellence wherever possible - allowing a clear pathway for Oxfordshire Players to progress within the game. Bringing players through from our Inclusivity programmes and through from our Club network and onto the First Class Game and beyond is the ultimate mission.
During 2014 our Youth Performance Programme undertook a significant transformation. An amalgamation of the cricket previously known as ‘district’ cricket to part of our programme under ‘development’ cricket has grown our number of youth squads from 12 to 28. This transformation, coupled with the development of our nomination and assessment process to include opportunities for the players to receive coaching and develop along with being assessed over a period of time, has made our pathway more clear and accessible. This process replaces our previous system of a single 90 minute session to prove their worth in front of coaches and now makes our assessment programme a ‘process' rather than an event.
Our Emerging Players Programme now has more contact time with players than ever before, including strength and conditioning sessions and expertise for the first time. Our academy programme’s fixture list is continually developing and has provided the platform for a number of debutants into the Senior Men’s Squad in recent years. Our two senior sides are performing well, including a national final for our Senior Men in 2015.
We must continue to strive to develop and improve all of our programmes.
Key themes
Developing Excellence
Adapting our talent ID and development process to current research - agreeing a clear philosophy for our programme.
Continuing to develop and grow our opportunities for training and playing.
Developing and supporting our performance coaching workforce.
The Performance Manager, Director responsible for Player Pathway and the two Performance Cricket MTs have responsibility for delivering this strategy.