It’s time to upgrade your post-game review.

If you have been involved in cricket as long as I have you know how the team debrief goes after the match: A few quick cliches and get out quickly, especially if you lost.

The coach says things like “I’m fed up of saying this but…” because the same errors are made every week.

This doesn’t work.

You know it doesn’t work because you are bored of them. You hear the same thing every time. nobody is getting better.

So let’s change things up. I propose something like this:

1. Summarise: Immediately after the match, one person (coach, captain, senior player) quickly summarises using the “stop, start, continue” system. Others can input, but keep the entire review down to less than 10 minutes.
2. Reflect: Some time later, but before too long, get together for something more detailed. Here you can look more at match stats, videos and analysis (if you have access to it). Encourage greater input from everyone about their own roles and how they can improve. Go away with solid actions for each player. This can be done in person or online with the PitchVision messaging system.
3. Act: Ideally, you will take these actions into training to work on specifics. For example, if you need to find a way to survive your first 20 balls, you come with a plan at nets to practice this phase. If you can’t practice for whatever reason, you should have planned for this too.

One final note here is the tone of the discussion: It’s easy to be negative and to blame people for mistakes. This doesn’t help anyone grow, so always look to move forward from errors by asking “how can I help sort this out?”

A team mate who keeps dropping high catches might be delighted to hear you offer to hit some balls up for you, rather than hear you complain about how his drop cost the team an important match.

So, take a positive review after games and before your next match and you will be in much better shape to improve and learn.