Charlie Allison AMAZING SIX YEAR OLD CRICKETER! - YouTube
I know I may be going ott, but i'm genuinely amazed by this video.
I'm not a coach, but I know some on here are. Have you ever seen a kid so young play like this?
Never seen a six-year-old at that stage, no, but he's one of an incredibly small sample size who has two older brothers playing Essex age group cricket already, and has therefore been around a cricket bat since birth, so anyone getting excited about him based on the fact that he's able to do things no other six-year-old can do is really getting falsely excited, because no other six-year-old has had the exposure and coaching that he has had.
He will score lots of runs at County Age Group level (as long as he can deal with the banter when wicketkeepers ask him if he's going to put his play-and-misses on YouTube, not that I'm going to encourage that in any way) but that, again, will be because his experience level is way up above his peers - I know my Oxfordshire U10 side will include boys for whom it's their first hardball season!
Long-term, though, this video is no indicator of "talent", which is a nonentity of a word anyway. It will depend on how long he wants to work at it, and whether he can apply himself to build innings and maintain concentration - again, the video doesn't suggest anything for or against this. Those players whom I've looked at, and have thought "professional cricketer", are those who - in addition to the technical basis that's firm, have the application and focus; e.g. a ten-year-old who averaged 100+ in a season of county cricket and batted through forty overs on more than one occasion.
There's another discussion here about the wisdom of developing, and hard-wiring, shots such as that reverse-sweep and the hook/pull/shovel (which is way off balance) at such an early age - how easy will it be for him to adjust that technique to a more reliable approach when the bowling begins to demand it?
