Former head coach of The Blaze, Chris Guest, opened up about the tasks he has had to face from his new role as England Women Under-19s head coach ahead of their World Cup campaign.
“I think that on an individual level with the under-19s, my personal biggest challenge is going to be not having the day-to-day contact with players that I’ve been used to and just stepping out into a more system development space.”
“Then again, developing these young players to be ready to step into that professionalism, while also trying to make sure that they’ve got that blend of understanding the world as well as Cricket, because it’s not necessarily going to be such a straightforward path now.”
“Generally before, if you’re a good 19s or good younger cricketer, you’d make it into professional cricket.”
“The talent pool is deepening, so that be some of these 19s group that don’t turn into professional cricketers, which hasn’t been the case before.”
Guest also spoke about finding a happy medium between being competitive and winning games while also focusing on the development of the next generation of England Cricketers. He also highlighted the challenges that some of the younger cricketers may not make it in the professional scene,
“You’ve got to get that balance.”
“Within the 19s, there’s no hiding from the fact that we want to go and have success and success looks like winning a World Cup, so the players are all aware of what that might bring in terms of pressure and and expectation.”
“They need that for those that to go on, but equally those that don’t go on to be professional cricketers in any job that they have, whoever they end up working for will expect them to be able to deliver success”
“The lessons we give to these young players are designed to be applicable in all walks of life”.
The Blaze coach for the last three years was also in charge of the England under-19s for the inaugural Under-19s Women’s World Cup two years ago, in which the side were bundled out 68 in the final against India. Guest looked back on the tournament and what he reflected on the most since 2023,
“One of our biggest reflections on the last World Cup was we created a really positive environment where the players were really safe, and developed quite a lot.”
“However, one downside was that we probably didn’t challenge them quite enough for what was to come.”
“We didn’t actually get challenged that much until the semi-final.”
“The games were a fair mismatch until we got to that point.”
“There’s obviously any time that anyone puts on an English shirt then there’s an element of challenge and everything like that within it”
“The games when we really felt it were against India and Australia and we probably did not let ourselves get to that point of being challenged enough before we ended up getting there.”
Guest then looked forward to the upcoming tournament in Malaysia, where they look to go one better than last time,
“The tour to Sri Lanka and certainly this World Cup we need try to make sure that the training and environment maintains that element of safety and an opportunity to explore and develop, but with quite a significant amount of challenges to be able to reflect back on”
“During the tournament, we were really clear on our messaging at the start of the tournament on how we wanted to go about our cricket and approach our cricket.”
“We probably weren’t quite clear enough on how the wickets are changed and what that might mean to the style of plate that we needed, so that’s something that we’re going to be looking at if it happens again.”
“We’ve just had the first camp last weekend and one of the things that I spoke to with the girls was the last three years of my career in particular have been a real strong focus on winning and trying to be the best, whereas for the previous 15 years, there has been a lot of development space and you still want to be the best at developing.”
“If we manage to go to a World Cup and get into those high-pressure environments situations again, it’s only going to help that England side down the line when some of these girls step up and move forward, so obviously we want to go and win it, there’s no two ways about it!”
