The Coaching team

Finally an answer to those of us who wondered what Keith Greenfield's role really was and how Sussex interpret the idea of a Director of Cricket. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrQz3HCzJZU&feature=youtu.be

It seems that he has been spending his time watching reruns of The Office and learning to use hackneyed middle management buzzwords. He has been doing some work on  enhancing the pathway;he is responsible for a couple of pillars; he spends a lot of time going forward; on countless occasions he sees an opportunity to upskill someone or some organisation; and he has a series of modules which he uses lavishly, if not altogether comprehensibly. When he has a little spare time it is spent supporting Davo, cheering him up and making a few phone calls to agents or researching a pre-season tour.

So, almost all of this, including the famed Strategy Pillar of Performance, is about the club game and nothing to do with the current first-class game. Why is he not the Director/Manager of cricket development? Does Sussex really believe that it can develop sufficient players of high quality through enhanced coaching and referrals to the main Academy and staff structure to avoid paying the high wages and fees to agents that are increasingly dominating the first-class game? What happens to those players when - if not otherwise distracted by career opportunities outside first-class cricket - they reach the performance pyramid of Academy/Seconds/Firsts and find they are on lower wages than offered by rivals nearby, and are playing for a side that is demoralised by failure, having been starved of resources?

This anecdote from Joe Root about the background to his 254 against Pakistan after two poor shot decisions at Lord's, and although he doesn't say so in the article, a run of under-achieving 50s, is getting some publicity.www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/36919900

"I knew I needed to put a really big performance in at Old Trafford so I worked really hard in practice and spoke to Mark Ramprakash," Root added.

"All he said was, 'It must be your mental approach to things because your game looks in good order'.

"It's actually exactly what I needed to hear and that's why he is such a good batting coach."

I'm sure he is a good batting coach technically as well, but the motivational tool is interesting, especially as it obviously never worked for Ramprakash as a Test match player. Perhaps the key thing is that Root "worked really hard in practice" before talking to Ramprakash.

Elswehere in the same piece Nick Compton describes the ethos of the England squad as " relaxed but its professional."
"I think [head coach] Trevor Bayliss clearly brought that to the squad, but of course there's a lot of professional people in there, like Mark Ramprakash and [assistant coach] Paul Farbrace, who does a lot of hard work behind the scenes."

Sussex players obviously train very hard physically in the modern, strength-building way, and Nash seems to have developed a tougher, more single-minded approach to his red ball game over the winter, but elsewhere we've  seen Machan fall time and time again to poor shot selections, seen Cachopa become just the shell of the confident stroke-maker of two years ago, and the lower order consistently failing to offer any resistance. We know that Luke Wright is an inspirational captain and Mark Davis an intelligent coach who does not shy away from trying out new ideas, and yet the team is failing, especially as a batting side.

Somehwhere in that mix of England positives,the individual hard work at batting practice, the motivational unorthodoxy of an inspired batting coach, and perhaps also in finding that balance of "relaxed but professional", Sussex must find out what they are missing, and fill the gap. The quick fix of an expensive short-term batting coach contract obviously backfired disastrously, especially given Jim May's remarks about budgetary choices between players and coaches. If that is literally true, that Sussex cannot afford both good players and good coaches, then there must be some external motivating factor that will inspire the existing blend of players and coaches, otherwise they will remain a second-class county holding out the begging-bowl and seeing its better players poached as soon as their talent becomes obvious.

Sussex are looking for a Lead Strength and Conditioning Coach

www.sussexcricket.co.uk/jobs-with-sussex

Is this a new role or a replacement?

Let's hope they advertise for a Batting Coach in time for next season.

These "in house" appointments are rife in cricket. This winter,Kent have appointed Walker, Lancashire chose Chappell, Derby have Kim Barnett in charge now and Yorkshire Gale . There seems to be an inbuilt reluctance to look outside those they know.