Three years after moving to the US, cricket star and World Cup-winning former England International Liam Plunkett has launched his Liam Plunkett Cricket (LPC) platform. The official kickoff was held last Friday, September 6 at a packed event in West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA, at the Gameday Cricket academy.
In his remarks at the event, and in an exclusive interview with cricexec, Plunkett described his strategy and vision of creating a platform to help develop players in the USA starting from early childhood up to the highest level.
A different model
LPC is not an academy itself, but rather a platform that partners with cricket academies throughout the US to help them develop the infrastructure, facilities, personnel and the necessary coaching approach to become excellent centers of talent development.
The Gameday academy, now LPC Gameday, is the first such partner and is the prototype for how LPC will operate.
Structuring the passion
Part of what inspired Plunkett to launch LPC was seeing the disconnect between the excitement for the sport in the US on the one hand, and the lack of knowledge and experience in running world class academies on the other.
Plunkett is extremely familiar with the state of cricket infrastructure in the US, having played for the last few years for the Philadelphians in the MiLC and the San Francisco Unicorns in the MLC.
“There’s not enough not enough structure here in the US,” says Plunkett. “There’s a lot of people with passion, which is great, but they just don’t know how to structure an academy – so that was the main reason behind launching LPC.”
First partner facility: leveling up
LPC Game Day’s West Chester, PA-location is special to Plunkett because, as he shares: “it’s a place where I’ve been coming for the last 18 years… My wife’s from Westchester, I have a house in West Chester, so to open up a cricket facility is very surreal.”
Plunkett partnered with West Chester resident and Game Day owner Zameer Syed to revamp Game Day Athletics into a world class cricket facility. As Plunkett explains, this involved addressing all facets of the venue.
“I said if you want to stand out you need a place where you could have guys running up. That’s going to help the baller and also the batter is going to get better quality because the bowler is allowed to run in and bowl quick…
“We installed these high quality nets, and did a lot of research in finding the right surface. We did a lot of testing in terms of the ball bounce and how quick it comes off the surface. In terms of ‘hightech’ it’s amazing. You’ve got a gym that’s state-of-the-art, you’ve got an ice bath, infrared – which I never had as a kid growing up. In this facility kids can become a part of the academy and have an amazing structure that they’re lucky to have.”
Syed echoed the importance of Plunkett’s involvement in enhancing the facility: “I had some ideas about this, but Liam came in with his unique perspective and different approach. The facility is designed by Liam, he wanted a top-notch international facility. For example this is the only facility with a full runup. That’s his vision. Now even if Shoaib Akhtar comes over and bowls here, the runup will be enough for him.”
World class staff
Beyond the facility, one of LPC’s priorities is to staff all partner academies with exceptionally qualified coaches.
As Plunkett himself cannot be everywhere, he’s particularly focused on recruiting stellar teams.
For this first facility, Plunkett convinced Corné Dry to come on as Director of Cricket at Game Day Athletics. Dry, an all-rounder who is originally South African, currently plays for the LA Knight Riders in the MLC, and the Atlanta Fire in the MiLC. Dry is the kind of player that young academy players aspire to become.
According to Plunkett: “Corne, as Director of Cricket, is going to help with structure and put something special in place here.”
Dry, who is moving from Atlanta to West Chester to take on the role, notes that his partnership with Plunkett was a natural one: “Liam’s very passionate about cricket in the USA similar to me, we share a lot of the same interests, so it’s great to be working together.”
Dry is joined on the coaching team by other US-based Minor League professional cricketers, including NYC Titans’ Aashish Katipally and Soripul Islam, who plays for the Philadelphians.
Pipeline and Pathway
Plunkett wants the partner academies to provide a full pathway for young crickets all the way from early youth all the way to launching their professional careers.
After developing their skills in their youth, Plunkett says, “I want to provide, with the coaching team, the players that are ready to play Minor League Cricket that opportunity. That’s the next step for these guys and we want to make that available. But when you step up to perform at that level, when you’re in Minor League Cricket, you’re still going to be involved in this academy, LPC.
“Then as you’ve seen around America guys like Sanjay (Krishnamurthi), like Ali Sheikh who perform from this ability – we want to put people in MLC. We want to put players into USA Cricket… They’re going to be ready to play because we’re going to give them the best opportunity with our approach.”
More on the way
Discussing the broader rollout of LPC, Plunkett said that he’s aiming to launch 10 more academy partnerships in 2024, and is on track to do so. In addition, there will be more next year.
But he emphasizes the importance of maintaining a high standard as LPC scales, and that the team has to “make sure we’re doing the job properly in each facility. When they sign I want to make sure what they’re delivering, what the coaches are putting out, is worthy of being involved.”
Name of Author: Zee Zaidi
