Summer’s here, and Notts County Cricket Club is defending their County Champions title. A lot of the credit for that goes to Mick Newell, the Outlaws’ highly-regarded director of cricket, and a man who could well be doing the same job for England in time…
The obvious question first: can Notts repeat as champions?
Well, I think it’s going to be difficult. There are a lot of good teams in the competition; out of the nine teams that are in it, I think there are probably five or six that think they can win. If we play well through April and May and give ourselves a good chance for the second half of the season, after the Twenty20 in June, I think we should be okay.
What would you say were the main ingredients to your success last year?
Well, our strength is based very much on our quick bowlers. We’ve got a number of good quality fast bowlers who perform well at Trent Bridge - it’s a ground that suits them, and our record here is pretty good. We need to bat a little better - I think that if we can do that then we’ve got a good chance of being in that top group.
Do you think the squad is as strong as it was last year?
Well, obviously, we’ve lost Ryan Sidebottom, so it’s difficult to say, because we’ve lost an international quality bowler there. But we think the other players have improved. We’ve brought two new players in: Ben Phillips, who’s a good fast bowler, and Riki Wessels, who’s a wicket-keeper/batsman. So, it’s difficult to say that it’s better, but it’s full of players who we think can help us win games.
And are there many players outside the first-team squad who you expect to see pushing for places?
Yes, there are - particularly in one-day cricket. We want to get our young players playing one-day cricket, be it the 40-over game or the Twenty20 competition. The senior players are more settled in the longer form of the game, while in the shorter game, where you need to be better fielders, more athletic – that’s where I see the young players playing.
Explain to our readers what a Director of Cricket actually does – is it similar to, say, Billy Davies’ job at Forest or Martin Allen’s at County?
I’d say a greater percentage of my job now is probably man-management. We have a batting coach and a bowling coach at Notts, and their job is to focus on the skills of the game and the technical side of things. I do a bit of that too, but my main job is to run the team from a tactical point of view and look after the players: make sure they’re happy, make sure we have good kit, the right practice pitches - ensure we have everything sorted for them so there are no excuses on the field.
When Duncan Fletcher coached England, he often used the analogy of the coach as a consultant and the captain as a Chief Executive. Is that pretty much how things are run here?
Yeah. I mean, once the game starts, the captain (former England wicket-keeper Chris Read) has to be in control of the bowling changes and the field positions and whether we bat or bowl. All these decisions ultimately come down to him. But I’m there as a sounding board for him, to make sure that we’re happy with what we’re trying to do when we pick the team to perform in the way we want it to.
Twenty20 has become a global phenomenon and is hugely lucrative – so where are the club’s priorities?
Well, the finances for Twenty20 are a little bit pie-in-the-sky a lot of the time - there are a lot of promises and not a lot are delivered. I think with the Championship, at least you know that you are going to win that money if you play well – and the prize money has gone up from £100,000 for the winners to half a million, which is a huge incentive. So, the Championship is always going to be our number one competition. And yes, Twenty20 has become a very important competition; it brings money in through bigger crowds. But whilst we have all the forms of the game, we want to win them all if we can.
You spent a winter with the England Lions - essentially, theinternational reserve squad. So, if the England job came along…
Well, yeah, obviously I’d like to coach at the highest possible level. But Andy Flowers is in situ for England, and there’s no reason to think that he’s going to be leaving his job any time soon. So at the moment, I don’t even think about it particularly. I enjoyed the Lions, which is a stepping stone for the players and maybe a stepping stone for coaches as well.
Well, a recent article in The Cricketer article last month saw you voted joint-Coach of the Year.
Oh did it? [laughs] I didn’t see that.
You’re well regarded.
Yeah, well, I don’t think the England coach has to be English. But the ECB has spent a lot of money training us coaches up to be better, so it would be nice if there was a group of English coaches considered good enough to coach the national side.
Finally, putting your salesman’s hat on, what would you say to the average member of the Nottingham public in order to persuade them to swing by Trent Bridge for a Championship game?
Well, you’ve got a beautiful ground to come along to and it’s a nice relaxing day. There’s no shouting and swearing – well, very little anyway – and on a summer’s day you can sit with a drink and watch the game in a pleasant atmosphere and learn a bit more about cricket.
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