Island players soak up cricket wisdom
Top coaches host clinic at Beacon Hill
As an all-star last season at both the B.C. high school basketball and soccer championships for St. Michaels University School, Jamison Schulz-Franco knows his way around sports.
But when you meet international-level coaching, even the best can be boosted.
“You get a cricket mind listening to people like these,” said Schulz-Franco, after the first day of a two-day cricket camp for local players at Beacon Hill Park.
The instructors Monday were former South African international and ODI captain Johan Botha, and Shaun Seigert, head coach of the Darren Lehmann Academy (Lehmann is the Australian national team coach).
Canada may be a second-tier cricketing nation, but that doesn’t matter, said Seigert, because a player is a player.
“The basics of the game are the basics — batting, bowling, fielding,” said Seigert, who has coached 20 Test players and more than 100 first-class pros in his 12 years with the Lehmann Academy.
“We take a holistic approach. We ask questions, and the players come up with the answers. The best learning is done through selfreflection.”
Botha was called away suddenly after Monday’s morning clinic by his Big Bash League team in Australia. Botha has played in both the Big Bash and Indian Premier League, the two main pro cricket leagues.
But the time they had with Botha, however constricted, made the young Island players happy campers.
“I am trying to become an all-rounder and I learned a lot of off-spin basics from Johan Botha today . . . he knows so much,” said Colts and Incogs junior star Schulz-Franco, who will attend Ryerson in the fall, and try out for the Rams basketball team in U Sports, and play for the Toronto Cricket Club.