CA Centre of Excellence puts Australia’s cricketers through their paces
Many of Australia’s top cricketers are putting the Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence (COE) and the Queensland sunshine to good use this month, spending every Monday and Tuesday at the high performance centre preparing for the Champions Trophy, VB Tour of the British Isles and the VB Tour of England.
Cricket Australia’s General Manager Team Performance Pat Howard said: “Those players who are currently in Australia have been using the facilities and the coaching staff that we have at the COE, in preparation for a big Northern Hemisphere summer of cricket.
“Obviously with the COE being in Brisbane, it allows the players to benefit from preparation on outdoor wickets during the winter months.
“This preparation is allowing our bowlers to get their bowling loads up ahead of their respective tours. Players in the Australia A and Ashes squads are training with the red English Duke balls that will be used in the UK. Our batters are taking full advantage of our ProBatter system and facing some of the players they may see in England.
“Those players coming back from injury have been using their time to rehabilitate with the numerous CA medical staff that are onsite.
“These camps are also providing an opportunity for our top cricketers to work with our young talented AIS scholars who are at the COE training for the winter which is a huge positive,” Howard said.
Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence Senior Manager Belinda Clark said: “It’s great to have the Australian men’s cricket team at the COE as they prepare for the Champions Trophy and Ashes campaigns.
“The backdrop to the team’s training is the new CA Centre of Excellence facility that will soon add another dimension to team and player preparation. Building construction is currently up to the first floor but will ultimately be a four-level building that will be the new home for Cricket Australia’s high performance.
“Building is progressing well with a high level of cooperation between Johnstaff as Project Managers, Cricket Australia, Queensland Cricket and Watpac as the builders. The project is due to be completed by October 2013 in time for training for the summer Test series,” said Clark.
The COE re-development is a joint venture between Cricket Australia, Queensland Cricket, and the Commonwealth and Queensland governments.
ProBatter is a virtual reality training tool to help batsman improve their game. The ProBatter is setup as if a normal bowling machine however it has a life-size display screen in front of it which depicts a selected bowler running in and delivering a certain delivery. Behind the screen is a sophisticated bowling machine which fires the ball out through a hole in the screen at the exact delivery point.
The computer archives vision of bowlers and their repertoire of deliveries which can then be selected from the menu. Batsmen will then see vision of the bowler bowling that selected delivery on the screen and the bowling machine will deliver the ball selected.