Cricket: Academy sets the standard

TOP CLASS: Coaches Ben Williams (left), and Russ Williams at the Ben Williams Cricket Academy in Te Puna.PHOTO/JOHN BORREN

An innovative sports facility in Te Puna is setting new standards of excellence in cricket coaching.

The Ben Williams Cricket Academy features covered outdoor artificial practice nets with pace and spin bowling machines but, this summer, the addition of eight high-quality grass practice wickets has lifted the facilities to a different level.

Academy director and head coach Ben Williams believes he now has facilities unmatched anywhere in the world.

The grass pitches are made of the same Patumahoe clay with rye grass as the Bay Oval wickets and many other cricket venues.

"Parklands from Hamilton did the work last winter in a week and Tauranga Cricket's groundsman Cameron Burns helped with organising the contractors and the ground work," Williams said.

"He did a fantastic job and the tracks are playing really well. They are first class and we wanted to provide the players with match-simulative experience.

"They can apply their techniques to different types of conditions with the wickets varying from nipping around a bit and quite bouncy, to very true nice wickets to bat on and then getting lower bounce and spinning more.

"We have been using them for three months now and we are simulating four or five different types of conditions, which is fantastic for our kids."

Tauranga-born and raised Black Caps Kane Williamson and Trent Boult are high-profile ambassadors for the academy who have benefited from hours of training at the peaceful Te Puna location.

Williams recently established an ingenious online coaching website called mycricketcoach.com which he says is "the ultimate online personal training tool for cricketers".

"There are more than 600 videos to choose from and we have free demos on the home page which paint the picture of what all the videos are about," he said.

"For example, if you are struggling with your straight drive not only do we cover the key fundamentals we have probably 15-20 faults identified. That makes it easy to identify your fault and we then show you how to fix it.

"We are very proud of mycricketcoach.com. It is a Kiwi-made product and we are representing New Zealand with it. I have studied everything else that is out there and we just genuinely believe that it is the best. People will very quickly realise that it is."

As well as the local Black Caps, there are cameo performances on the videos from Northern Knights players like Bay of Plenty's Graeme Aldridge.

Another point of difference for the academy is the on-site accommodation available for overseas cricketers and school groups. This summer 18 young players from Scotland, Zimbabwe, England and Holland are living at the academy.

The next phase is working with international teams and English counties to come out to use the facilities.

"They are really excited about putting together an initiative in coming out here. With the grass wicket training facility we can provide a really quality product."