Recently, I caught up with a friend whose fourteen-year-old son has fallen in love with cricket. The youngster lives and breathes the game, playing in multiple competitions, including State underage representative carnivals and challenges.
My friend is grateful to be able to share his love for the game with his son, even if it means carting him around to cricket during the Winter as well as the Summer. But he also explained how confused he was about how to help his lad take the next steps the game. The term that kept coming up in his utterings was ‘The Pathway’ or slight variations thereof. I immediately confessed that my understanding of ‘Pathways’ broad but rather shallow. I pointed him to the numerous explanatory public documents published by Cricket Australia and the various State Cricket authorities. I also flagged with him that each has their own pathway that reflects their particular requirements, but that they all feed into the national plan for talent identification and development overseen by Cricket Australia.
