Lydia Greenway is a retired English cricketer with four Ashes wins and two World Cups to her name. Having retired this summer, Lydia made her England debut in the first Women’s Ashes Test of the 2003 tour to Australia and went on to represent her country a further 224 times, scoring over 4,000 international runs and taking a total of 121 international catches, over a 13-year span.
Now the coach and Director of her own coaching company ‘Cricket for Girls’, Lydia works hard at promoting the game of cricket and encouraging more women to become coaches of the game.
On Wednesday 14th December 2016, Lydia hosted a twitter Q&A as part of #womenswednesday in partnership with Project 500…here are some of the questions she received along with her answers…
Q: Do u think here will ever be an England female head coach – and would you like to be?
A: there is no reason why there couldn’t be a female head coach As for me I’ve still got a lot to learn!
Q: What did you learn from the coaching you had as a player? Good or Bad?
A: how important it is for coaches to understand the players, the good ones realize what makes individual players tick
Q: Great point, more important than the technical and tactical knowledge then?
A: I think good technical and tactical knowledge creates the foundations, & understanding the players makes for better coaches
Q: in your opinion what makes a “good” coach a “great” coach?
A: to understand their own game as soon as possible and learn to filter or keep info that helps them from coaches
Q: In your opinion what makes a “good” coach a “great” coach?
A: coaches who are able to help build mental toughness and resiliant players as well helping build confidence
Q: Why did you choose to become a coach? Did you see it as a natural step beyond your impressive playing career?
A: to be honest I was unsure of what I wanted to do. Having had a bit of time it now feels the most natural step
Q: Can you share your favourite quote or piece of advice that helped you most?
A: I really like “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re probably right”
