Investigating community cricket coaches attempts to make net practice sessions more game-like

In Australian sport, there is strong advocacy for a more representative of the game approach to practice using a game-based approach (GBA) for coaching youth sport by the Australian Sports Commission and Cricket Australia (CA). This study applies Participatory Action Research (PAR) and an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) framing to create knowledge about coaching pedagogy change to make cricket net sessions more game-like. Data was collected through interviews with the three coaches and analysed to identify themes. Enablers of change were identified to make net sessions more game-like and results showed an AI approach helped identify factors that community cricket coaches needed to make net sessions more game-like. This research identifies the importance of aligning key knowledge and supporting community cricket coaches when implementing GBAs in net sessions which is essential in aligning community cricket coaching with goals set by CA.