An EXPERIENCED cricket coach who has helped to produce national team players paid a visit to Ellesmere College to share his knowledge in a recent workshop.

Jason Weaver, who used to be the head coach at Kent Academy, organised a fielding and wicketkeeping workshop for the young Cricket Academy players as part of a major initiative with Cricket Shropshire.

The workshop featured practical and theory training, with some intense fielding skills sessions to emulate under pressure fielding situations.

Jason also took part in a Q&A session with the Ellesmere Cricket Academy players who were all very keen to hear and learn from Jason’s wealth of coaching experiences.

After retiring from his professional playing career which saw him make appearances for Newport, Shifnal, and then Shropshire County in the 1990 and 1991 NatWest Cup, Weaver took on a development role at Kent County Cricket Club.

He acted as a high performance manager for 10 years before becoming the high performance director in January 2017.

During his time at the club, he oversaw the development of the county’s young talents and saw his graduates succeed within both their national and regional teams – such as Zak Crawley who recently made his England debut.

Weaver currently works with Sussex County Cricket Club’s ‘Player Pathway’ programme for wicket-keepers and acts as a mentor on the ECB Advanced Coach Education course.

Rod Jones, the Cricket Academy Head Coach at Ellesmere College, was pleased to see the academy players learning so much throughout the day.

He said: “The session was intense with a view of working under pressure whilst doing the basics.

“The players got a lot out of the session, which hopefully they’ll take into their games.”

Jason then led a Coaches Coaching session at the College with the Shropshire Country Cricket coaches.