They say you should never meet your heroes, but my meetings with Mike Brearley in his North London home over the last few weeks have been everything I expected.

The meetings were part of the preparation of a brand new and groundbreaking coaching course that the ex-England and Middlesex skipper is bringing  exclusively to this very site: Cricket Captaincy by Mike Brearley.

This Course is particularly exciting because despite his many speaking engagements and constant involvement with the game Mike has not published a new major work on cricket captaincy since the seminal  'The Art of Captaincy' was published in the 1980s.  Now together with PitchVision Academy he has completely updated and expanded on his previous works to create the world's first interactive guide to captaincy.

And if anyone knows about being a leader it's Mike Brearley.

For me, as an English cricket fan, the heroes of the 1981 Ashes (Botham, Brearley, Willis and the others) have been imprinted on my psyche even though I was only 5 when it all happened. I read the books, watched the videos and hoped to emulate their achievements; particularly as captain of my local club team. 

I wish when I was battling with field placings, difficult characters and the other minutiae of captaincy that I had been in those meetings with Mike. It would have made life a lot simpler. Maybe I would have had more success as a skipper back then.

I found out through our discussions over the course that Mike is the same in person as he came across to me on the TV: Thoughtful and intelligent with both broad and deep knowledge of the game. Perhaps more importantly he knows the way people tick. He took my basic thoughts on captaincy and leadership in general and gave them much more depth.

Now the results of those meetings are a training course that you can access too. The course includes step-by-step guides to:

• Developing players
• Man-management, influence and respect
• Batting orders, declarations and field settings
• Reading conditions and opposition players
• Much more

I'm delighted that Mike has agreed to produce this course. I doubt anyone alive today could match his knowledge, passion and experience in the subject.

If you would like to pre-order 'Cricket Captaincy by Mike Brearley' click here.