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Surrey and England cricketers Mark Ramprakash and Martin Bicknell led sessions at the ICC’s European Development Program’s inaugural Coaching and Development Conference held at the MCC Indoor Cricket School from 29 November to 3 December.

The conference was the first of its type to be run in the region and provided an opportunity for a team of 37 talented coaches and development officers from European Associate, Affiliate and Prospective member countries to meet and discuss different coaching practices and learn new coaching skills. The main content of the Conference was the recently launched ICC Introduction to Cricket Course Instructor Training Course.

All regions of the ICC Development Program have agreed to implement a uniform training methodology aimed at developing a high standard of local instructors within countries to run this new ICC course. The overall aim of the ICC Introduction to Cricket Course is to provide participants with a basic understanding of the game of cricket, a basic education in three key components of the game (playing/coaching, umpiring and scoring) and the skills and resources to conduct a cricket session with children.

Participants who attended the instructor training at Lord’s will be able to conduct this course back in their home countries when accredited. Throughout the conference attendees were also involved in active sessions and informative lectures on many different areas of the game.

As well as the two former England players, sessions were be run by highly experienced ECB Staff Coaches and ECB Performance and Development staff including Performance Manager Keith Tomlins and England U15 Coach David Parsons. MCC Head Coach and former England player Clive Radley ran a session on playing against spin bowling with England & Surrey player Mark Ramprakash, and Stuart Barnes (Gloucestershire Assistant Coach & Academy Director) and Richard Cox (Warwickshire Director of Cricket) also ran sessions on academies and batting respectively.

From Europe, former Dutch World Cup Captain Roland Lefebvre and Technical Director Peter Drinnen from Scotland presented. Nineteen countries were represented by active coaches who have qualified through ECB’s Coach Education Scheme in Europe over the last seven years.

The week–long conference was kindly supported by MCC who allowed the coaches full use of the excellent facilities of the Indoor School.