Sussex CCC Review of the Season: A Tale of Two Teams
________________________________________________________________________________________Championship
One Step Forward Two Steps BackWhat a frustrating and upsetting Championship season 2019 turned out to be. As usual it began with such high hopes and promise, but fizzled out like a deflated and washed up balloon. All the optimism and fervour behind the Andrew/Gillespie dream team to win us promotion to Division 1 (surely with the three places up for grabs an absolute cert) was mercilessly and cruelly extinguished. How can a side go backwards after a promising first year under Jason Gillespie? The coach with the midas touch backed by a CEO with considerable sporting success and administrative experience. How could this be?
Are Andrew’s hopes of building a promotion winning team based around the Sussex CCC Academy and its youngsters a naive and foolish pipe dream? Which leads to the chicken and egg conundrum. Are they simply not good enough or has Gillespie misplaced the ability to coach them?
The Dream Team Face a Stark Reality
At times, Dizzy was in such a tizzy over the poor way his team played, he appeared shocked and perplexed, as if he’d never witnessed before batting car-crashes of such magnitude. Like the steely mindset of a former Aussie Test cricketer colliding with a group of millennial snowflakes, for where was the mental backbone, the desire for victory, fighting to win every session and the ruthlessness of grabbing that position and refusing to let it go? It isn’t so much the cricket, perhaps, but the mental side that Gillespie has little understanding of. How can players behave in such an un-Australian way? How can they roll-over and surrender so easily?
At other times, the Sussex top order suffered from ‘paralysed rabbits in car headlights syndrome’. For example, what on earth has happened to Luke Wells’ batting prowess since Gillespie became coach? Back in 2017 under Mark Davis, Luke was the side’s leading light and top scorer with 1,292 runs alongside an impressive average of 64.60. There were rumours that England had their beady eye on him.
The following year his run count more than halved to 607 runs and a 26.39 average and this season it has fallen further to 527 and a paltry 23.95. He played in all 14 games and is allegedly our best batsman. So what has triggered this decline? Not even spending the Winter in Australia and captaining the Victorian Premier Cricket side Casey-South Melbourne helped which poses an awkward question: Given Wells doesn’t play white-ball cricket is it not time for him to move to another county to rediscover his form?
Sadly, the list continues. Harry Finch’s batting crashed off a cliff. After a promising 2018 where he hit 722 runs at an average of 30.08, he couldn’t buy a run this season. One felt great sympathy as his humiliation increased throughout the summer. Harry struck just 161 runs from 8 matches with an average of 12.38. He lies 158th in the Division 2 batting average list. What is going on? He is supposed to be our future Murray Goodwin of the middle order and why serious questions must be asked about the Academy youngsters. Our most talented, Phil Salt, scored 722 runs in 2018, this season 603. Ben Brown, 912 and now 812. In fact, Brown is the only Sussex batsman who has shown consistency in recent years. Van zyl scored 1,023 in 2017, this season 820 runs. Why are the top Sussex batsmen performing worse? Only 4 Sussex players (more than 3 matches) appeared in the top 70 of the Division 2 batting averages. Just 4!
Meanwhile, Tom Haines seems out of his depth with only Delray Rawlins showing improvement. Not only is it worrying, but deeply disturbing if the Club’s future is reliant on the Academy. Apart from Phil Salt’s progress, a cricketer who appears more at home with white ball, how long will it take to gain promotion? How many of the youngsters are actually good enough to make the grade? Luke Wright was sacrificed because of them. In hindsight, a poor error of judgment. Should Keith Greenfield and Michael Yardy take the blame or is this solely on the shoulders of Gillespie?
What has happened to Luke Wells' form?
And yet the team led by their seamers had brilliant moments of embracing that Aussie mindset and brutally vanquishing opponents, but gaining promotion is about consistency rather than schizophrenic, almost scattergun, ups and downs.
Ben Brown admitted in an interview with radio commentator, Adrian Harms, after the embarrassing away loss to Derbyshire which ended any outside hope of promotion that the Club needed a batting coach. “I know we should take responsibility for our own improvement and progress… but a fresh set of eyes, a fresh way of thinking would really help the batsmen.”
While playing for Australia and later at Yorkshire, Gillespie became used to being around competitively fierce players with do or die ambition, grit and dogged determination, alongside an ability to forge their own progressive path. In his eyes, perhaps, specialist coaches are more appendages and not a necessity. So, perhaps, a culture clash has arisen?
Some might suggest that the Sussex youngsters have been mollycoddled, where the family Club setting has made them soft and needy. For what is apparent is that not only do the squad require both specialist batting and bowling mentors, but above all, a mental coach. Therefore, are Gillespie and Sussex too disparate, where their respective mindset, experience and background don’t conform?
Sensibly, the Club listened to Brown’s plea and are presently advertising for a top batting coach. Hopefully, come next season, whoever is chosen can find a way of reinvigorating the batsmen’s confidence and help them rediscover their form.
A Ray of Youngster Sunshine
Meanwhile, Jon Lewis being appointed bowling coach for the England U19s in late 2017 has been a huge loss to Sussex. Lewis who was viewed as a father figure by the youngsters and described by Mark Robinson as ‘a proper bloke’ is primarily responsible for transforming Jofra Archer in to the sports superstar today, where the once envied pipeline of youngster seamers benefitted too. So, is it no surprise that Whittingham and now Sakande have departed, Garton seems in no-man’s land after injury, with only Robinson progressing. How different could it have been if Lewis had stayed?
Ollie Robinson with his 63 Championship wickets (from just 11 matches), once again, showed what a superb seamer he has become, easily outshining his contemporaries, and proving to be an excellent signing from Yorkshire. Ollie is a fighter, refusing to allow injury to allay his ambitions, where some suggest he’s good enough to join Archer in the England ranks. Ollie was supported by David Wiese (30 wickets) and Chris Jordan (26), whilst Mir Hamza (21) was a shrewd and popular O/S signing for the first half of the season.
Wiese must be mentioned again for he is one of the Club’s best signings in recent years. He had another outstanding season with both bat and ball in all three formats. Unlike some of his team mates, the South African Kolpak has flourished under the leadership of Gillespie. Ben Brown batted well again and led by example, although he is not a born-leader, is unable to master T20, and supporters are questioning whether Ben’s suited for captaincy, particularly when combined with his keeping.
Meanwhile, through all the ups and downs of this season, there was an overall sense of the huge loss of Jofra Archer to England. A gaping hole that Sussex will find almost impossible to fill and another reason why the Club were unable to gain promotion. It wasn’t just the batting. No-one was there to take on Archer’s ability to secure wickets at opportune and important moments in matches. He is a unique player that comes along every 50 years or so for Sussex (perhaps, not since Tony Greig). As for the signing of Aaron Thomason, perhaps, Gillespie has seen something in him others don’t perceive. Danny Briggs took just 4 wickets (Wells gained 11, Rawlins 10) and Beer proved far more successful with the bat. This was not a season for the leading Sussex spinners either.
Meanwhile, the olive branches are coming thick and fast for supporters with this week’s signing of Aussie international Travis Head for 2020. No doubt there will be further new faces appearing which will make a refreshing change after last Winter’s ‘nul points’.
A Huge Loss for Sussex
To conclude, there are important questions to be asked after such a disappointing Championship. Given their combined successful sporting backgrounds do the Andrew and Gillespie dream team properly understand the Sussex CCC mindset? And if not, are they both willing to dig deep, stay for the long haul, focus on the huge amount of work ahead, whilst changing the club culture around to their way of thinking? Both could easily gain other, far better paid and higher profile jobs, if they wished. Their Sussex failure would be viewed as a blip within their long and illustrious sports-related careers.
A further question: Does signing a Coach for just 6 months of the year, so they can return to Australia and overseer a Big Bash League team during the England Winter, actually work? Shouldn’t the coach, at least, have an ear to the English ground and the cricketing network of hearsay and chitchat for 12 months of the year? Is there a place for cricket bigamy when the present Sussex CCC mindset is to be part of a closely-knit family?
So, get ready for the calls of “ROBBO”, “MOORESY” or “GRIZZ” if it all goes pear-shaped again next season. Some mindsets can only prosper in one particular and unique way, for when an outsider appears and attempts to change it, this can end in tears.
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/teams/sussex/averagesPS: 2018: Sussex came 3rd in the Division 2 table with 186 points. 2019: Sussex came sixth in the Division 2 table with 156 points. This season 186 points would have meant certain promotion to Division 1.
