Cricket with Disabled Children

[bitsandpieces]

Hi there

I'm taking some members from my club down to play some cricket with children at a Disability Sports Club.

The children have a lot of different disabilities over a broad age group (five up to mid-teens. They range from able-bodied siblings to some children with downs syndrome to some who are disabled down one side of their body and a number of other disabilities.

We'll be using a kwik cricket set and I was wondering if anyone can recommend some fun activities for us to do with the children? We'll play a match at the end, but some basic cricket-related coaching and games that would be appropriate for their age and ability levels would be really handy!

Thanks, Rob.

[mas cambios]

There a lot of things you can try.

For example have one team of 3/4 standing in a small circle trying to get to 10 catches, with another team 'scoring' runs. The team running keeps on doing this until the 10 catches have been made. Then swap over - most runs wins. Kids love the competive element, no matter how small it may seem.

To make it easier for kids with disabilities use half size pitches (11 yards not 22 or even smaller) to run on and you can use a football/beach ball for the catches etc.

As a warm up, have them moving around the hall and when you call a number they have to perform a cricket related action - so 1 could be 'Hit a six', 2 could 'bowl a ball' 3 is 'take a catch', 4 is 'appeal (shout howzat) 5 'throw a ball for a run out' and so on. It's a fun game for 5/10 minutes and helps to warm them up a little. I normally use a giant dice to decide the numbers, but calling them out works as well. It's best to introduce the numbers in small batches though, say 2 at a time.

There are some ECB lesson plans at this link - you should be able to adapt some of them, depending on the needs. I'd say that you just need to be imaginative and adapt things to meet their needs, so use a football/beachball if a tennis ball is too small, shorten the pitches, give them 6 wickets to aim at instead of 3, allow single handed or modified grips and use measure scores by distance hit etc.

[bitsandpieces]

Mas those are fantastic! Using a football is a great idea.

Thanks very much, I will definitely try those, and one or two of the drills from the link that I can adapt.

If anyone has any other suggestions, please feel free to post :-)

[mas cambios]

The key thing is to remember their limits and adapt the game to them. Anything is possible with a little bit of thought.

[D.K]

We have just done 11 days of teaching with a disabled student as part of our PE teaching course. The amount you can do with disabled students is amazing even with large impacting disabilities.

I had two wheelchair bound students that had pretty good co-ordination of their upper body. They posesed great strength in their arms and could lean over to the side of their chair and hold onto a cricket bat. By basicly bowling the ball, underarming it or rolling it they were able to hit it. Just by hitting it (handed usually like a baseball strike) the pleasure was there in such a simple way.

My advice would be to play games (like mas said) that you are able to play with children without disabilities and then adapt them to their abilitie. Simple games like just catching the ball, aiming at stumps, hitting the ball is all you need to do. As their Fundamental Motor Skills (catching, running, throwing, leaping kicking etc) are so poor and develop at different rates to each other you will find some kids are able to do some activities and others aren't. Just think on your toes and modify when required.

Good luck

[bitsandpieces]

Thank DK! Good luck with your P.E. teaching.

Yeah I work with the kids at the Disability Sports Club and they're all awesome! And now I've definitely got some inventive and fun ways of bringing cricket to their saturday morning! Result!

Mas -re: the football replacement.. to be thrown under-arm?

By the by, I once saw a blind cricket match back in my home town of Reading.. amazing! Going largely by the sound of objects inside the ball, they have to have even more skill than your top-class cricketer!! Awesome.

[mas cambios]

I would use underarm for the football. One of the cheap plastic ones you find on garage forecourts is ideal.

[Liz Ward]

Having worked with disabled children [cricket and fundamentals of movement] and had the pleasure of being a guest at an adult disabled cricket match, I would agree with everything already said.

Like D.K's experience I have worked with children in wheelchairs, deaf, blind, loss of limbs [including running with one leg]... physical, emotional and mental disabilities.

I would say, though, that your main problem will be differentiating between such a wide range, age group rather than disabilities but as you already know their capabilities, you're almost there.

If you are going to use a football, I would suggest a sponge/foam ball; it is easier to hold for some players. I would also use overarm as well as underarm, if they are capable, it is a good movement to learn.

More importantly, during the match, ensure all the players are able to shine in their own way and try and encourage your able bodied players to resist assiting too much. If you have deaf players, encourage the club players to learn sign language, I found the hearing players enjoyed this very much.

[bitsandpieces]

Liz that's really helpful, thank you!

There's plenty of sponge balls at the club if we need them! I'll encourage over-arm throwing, particularly if we have 2 sets of stumps! The club has also said they'll buy a brand new kwik cricket set so we can play cricket with the kids on a more regular basis

Yes I was thinking for a match, what about using a slightly different scoring system, such as loss of a wicket is -5 runs rather than back to the pavilion, and every batsman bats in pairs for say 2 overs, like in beach cricket. More fun less disappointment! Particularly for those with less mobility. It's hard enough for us batsmen anyway!

[Liz Ward]

Pairs Cricket http://static.ecb.co.uk/files/kwik-c...e-game-108.pdf is great. I would pair up an able bodied with a disabled player to give support when fielding but the able bodied must remember to give the disabled player time and experience, ie, all must take a turn at all positions.

When we play pairs, each team starts with 200 runs. We have no extra balls for a wide or no ball but they count as two runs. If you wish, you can dispense with this for the disable player but enforce it for the able bodies, as a sort of handicap. No LBW and if the batsman is out, five runs deducted. Each pair has four overs [depending on time] and then they rotate position with another pair.

This is slightly different from most tournaments but with smaller numbers, all on the field, everybody is involved all the time.