'You talk to the current England players and one of the things that helped them was playing boys’ cricket and adult men's cricket. The skill level is very close, it’s actually the power and speed that makes the difference.'
It's difficult for Jack Beaumont to single out one or two standout moments from the 2021/22 academic year at Framlingham College.
The school, based in Suffolk, boasts around 40 teams across the year groups and he's lost track of how many reached the final of the county cup. The Under-15 girls reached the last 16 of a national competition before meeting local rivals Ipswich School, a handful of senior girls have stepped up to the boys' 1st XI, and Hollie Dring-Richardson made history with a T20 century during the school’s end of season tour to Eastbourne.
The sixth-former, an allrounder in girls' cricket and a lower-middle order batter and seam bowler for the boys, is one of many bright prospects on the school's books, with younger sister Poppy (Essex), opening batter Jayden Borges (Norfolk), Sophie Singer (Suffolk) and Loulou Ford (Norfolk) also picked out as future talents by Beaumont.
However, despite the recent success, Beaumont, who took over the cricket programme from Chris Grange last September, has big plans for his time at the helm.
Driving through (Supplied)
The school currently participates in an end-of-season tour to Eastbourne College, competing alongside Seaford College – against whom Dring-Richardson scored her century, Stamford School and their hosts in boys (Under-15 and Under-13) and girls (1st XI) fixtures, but hopes to resume overseas touring in the not too distant future. National success in girls’ cricket is also on his radar as is increasing the number of two-day fixtures offered by the school.
But one of his top priorities remains breaking down the barriers between boys' and girls' cricket through mixed training and teams – both in school fixtures and the Albert XI, a mixed year-group team who play long-format games against touring representative sides.
"It stretches the girls in a different way to girls' cricket because the way the game is played is different," Beaumont explains. "You talk to the current England players and one of the things that helped them was playing boys’ cricket and adult men's cricket. The skill level is very close, it’s actually the power and speed that makes the difference.
"They have to be quite a strong character to dominate a boys' game. Often in the first few games, they're quite timid, reserved, and shy but the more they play, the more they get involved. It's just a game of cricket with people they see around school and chat to like normal people – boys' cricket gets put on a pedestal.
"It's nice to see other girl who aren't in the boys' team going, 'Hollie hasn’t played with them has she? She got three wickets? That's amazing!'. It boosts Hollie up and the other girls start to think it might be achievable. The best girls can certainly compete with the best boys.
"For the boys, it's nice for them to mix because they've started to realise that the girls are pretty good. They're not embarrassed to get out [to the girls] anymore."
The boys and girls have benefitted from competing with and against each other (Supplied)
Another goal is to improve the school's use of technology during cricket sessions and matches and incorporate an element of analysis into the curriculum. His aim is to "eradicate" himself from the process by developing cricketers who understand their own game while also building up a bank of resources and evidence to show to scouts at the likes of Essex, Northamptonshire – with whom the school has an educational partnership, Sunrisers and South East Stars.
"I get a lot of messages from scouts saying, 'Sorry, we couldn't make it to the game today, can we watch it?', so we put up a live stream towards the end of the season," he says. "One of the massive focuses for me is how we can put more of these kids on the radar of coaches and also make sure it's not just the one day they turn up for trial but all of the footage from school.
"Cricket is becoming data driven so it's important to build up profiles on these players because when you go to Essex, that's what they're interested in: what do they average, how do they get out, how many catches, how many runs do they save.
"It's important the kids are exposed to that and use it more, rather than it just being a gimmick. I want more video technology in training sessions and analysis sessions on the timetable. I'm trying to get rid of myself from the process. One day, they'll leave school, go to university and won't have access to coaches. Can we create a system so they know their game and can set up a tripod and video and coach themselves. Do they understand their game or not?"
Framlingham player producing a fine forward defence (Supplied)
Finally, Beaumont wants to improve participation levels. Every pupil has access to at least one cricket session per week throughout the school year regardless of age, gender or ability, with more sessions offered as the season approaches, but he is keen to offer competitive fixtures to more pupils. In an ideal world, he would extend the school cricket calendar through to October half-term, capitalising on the usually pleasant autumn weather and interest in club cricket, but for now he’ll settle for more internal fixtures and a winter indoor league.
"A number of kids have surprised me," Beaumont says. "They love cricket but are not very good, but they come to every hour [of practice] they can get to and I've seen big strides in a couple of them. A couple of kids scored their first fifties when back in September I wouldn’t have thought they'd made the team.
"I'd love to play cricket through to October but we’re not a big school so we're struggling for numbers and it would take away from hockey and rugby. I'm trying to find a mid-week T20, I'm going to run a winter indoor league, and we have house cricket in the summer which is very well attended. It's amazing the number of kids who came out of the woodwork and were surprisingly good having spent the entire year trying to avoid cricket!"
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