Week 1 - Cricket

Skill focus: Batting and protecting the wicket

Session equipment

Cones or markers
Plastic or foam Cricket bats
Tennis balls (or similar)
Wickets
Hoops
Variety of targets

Download the Cricket - Week 1 activity card to support teaching before and during the sport session.

Fast start - Upside down

Equipment: 8 markers to set out 25m x 25 m playing area, 1 additional marker per student

How to play:

Divide students into two groups called 'builders' and 'bulldozers'.
Each student places 1 or 2 markers out in the playing space.
Builders place the markers the right way up and bulldozers place them upside down.
Students return to their baseline (group zone) at each end of the playing area.
On the teacher's signal, all students race to turn the markers over to their designated side.
Students can only turn over one marker at a time and then return to their zone before moving to turn over another.
The game continues for a set time until the teacher signals the end of the round.
The markers are tallied for each team and then reset to commence again. The aim is for each team to have as many markers as possible positioned in their favour at the end of the allocated time.

CHANGE IT!

Vary the size of playing space.
Add more markers (even amount for each group).
Vary the locomotor movements.

Select card to download

Skill development games

Choosing teams

In a sport education approach, affiliation is promoted by students being a member of the same team over a period of time. It is intended that students remain in these teams for the duration of each sport program for the skill development and the modified small-sided games, so that they can develop and learn together.

Place students in equal teams, 4 teams is optimal, at the beginning of the skill development session. Strategies for forming groups can be found in the Game-based learning in sport and physical activity e-learning course.
To further promote affiliation students can decide on a team name.
Once the teams are determined you can add the team and student names to the Cricket draw template.

Explicitly model basic grip and stance before beginning skill development rotations:

Basic grip — the way the bat should be held when batting, with the hands together comfortably in the middle of the handle. Players should make a V-shape with the thumb and forefinger of each hand, with the ‘V’ pointing to the forward edge of the bat.
Stance — the way in which a batter stands in front of the wickets to receive a bowled ball. When batting from a tee, the batter stands side-on to the tee. When facing a bowler, the batter stands side-on to the bowler with feet shoulder-width apart.

Activity 1 - Bat tapping

Equipment: 1 cricket bat and tennis ball per person

How to play: Each player has a suitable batting implement and ball. The aim is to keep tapping the ball into the air with the bat for as long as possible. Many variations are possible.

Players tap their ball up and down on their bat, and count the number of consecutive taps they get.
If a player drops their ball, they start counting

from the beginning.

Bat Tapping - Playing for Life Activity Card

French Cricket - Playing for Life Activity Card

Activity 2 - French Cricket

Equipment: 1 cricket bat, 1 tennis ball, cones to mark fielder-free zone

How to play: The batter stands with feet together and holds the bat in front of the legs. Fielders throw the ball underarm and the batter hits in any direction. The batter is out if the ball is caught on the full or if they are hit on the legs.

Players are placed as shown with a fielder-free zone in front of the batter.

Activity 3 - Batting blast

Equipment: 1 cricket bat per pair, 1 tennis ball per pair, batting tees, cones

How to play: The batter hits the ball, from a tee, at different targets. The aim is to work on moving towards the ball and swinging freely.

Pair students and make one the batter and one the fielder.
The batter hits between the target or at their own target.
Once a batter hits 3 balls, students swap roles.
Make up your own scoring system, students love scoring challenges.
Introduce underarm bowl for confident batters.

Activity adapted from Cricket Australia HPE Program.

Hit the Target - Playing for Life Activity Card

Activity 4 - Hit the target

Equipment: A variety of targets – such as 2-litre (or larger) plastic bottles with a little sand in the bottom, cricket wickets, cones or buckets, 2 tennis balls per player.

How to play: Targets are set up away from a throwing line. Players score points by throwing a ball at the targets.

Players throw a ball, using either an overarm or underarm throwing action, to hit or land in targets.
Each player has a set number of throws (e.g. 2).
Play is stopped to re-position targets that have been knocked over.

Modified small-sided games

It's time for competition!

Teams compete against each other in the game outlined below. You can use the 'Cricket draw' as a guide to organise the competition, across the 4 sessions try to ensure each team has a fair number of games.

Allocate 3 points for a win, 2 points for a drawer and 1 point for a loss for each game played. Record results and points in the School sport program results spreadsheet.

Remember, to give students an update of the leader board each week.

Hit 4 and go

Equipment: Tennis balls, cones, cricket bat, hoop, batting tee

How to play: A batter hits 4 consecutive balls into the field and then runs between marker cones as many times as possible. When the fielders have returned all 4 balls, they call out ‘STOP!’.

Batter:

Hits 4 balls, one after the other, into the playing space.
The balls can be hit from the ground, or off tees, you can toss the ball and hit it yourself, or have a team mate toss the ball to you.
When the last ball is hit, the batter runs between the marker cones as many times as possible.

Fielders:

Fielders must wait until all 4 balls have been hit before moving.
Fielders return the balls to the home base – balls must be inside the hoop to count.
Fielders call ‘STOP!’ when the last ball reaches home base.