Dizzy wants love for county game

Jeremy Blackmore catches up with Jason Gillespie following his decision to leave Sussex and head Down Under

Australian pace legend Jason Gillespie, who coached county cricket for almost a decade, says the game does not get enough love or the credit it deserves.

Gillespie, who departs his role as head coach at Sussex at the end of this season, stressed that standards in the county game were high and producing quality cricket.

Gillespie has spent three years on the south coast and before that coached Yorkshire to back-to-back Championship titles.

He spoke this week about his time in the county game amid rumoured changes to the two-division structure.

“I just love county cricket plain and simple, everything about it. I love how everyone just embraces it. It’s so well supported.

“It doesn't get the credit, the accolades it deserves. It’s a much better product than even the ECB, I think, gives it credit for. I don’t think it gets quite enough love. That’s my take on it.”

“It’s fantastic cricket, the cricket’s quality. The supporters are a great, a lot of people follow it. You only have to follow the live streams, the various social media platforms, just how well supported it is. People love it.”

Gillespie, who already coaches the Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League, is taking on a new role with the South Australian Cricket Association. He will take over as new Head Coach of the West End Redbacks, the men's professional first-class cricket team based in Adelaide. It is a role which will allow him to be at home with his family all year round.

He admitted it had been a difficult decision though because of the great opportunity he had been offered at Sussex and the relationships he had built at the club.

“I’m going to miss it. No doubt. I hope it's not the last time I’m in county cricket, but the time is right for me to be home. I’ve got an opportunity to coach my home state who haven't had the best time of it the last few years and from a personal point of view, family life, it's probably the right time for me to be home full time in Australia right now.”

Gillespie oversaw Yorkshire’s promotion from Division Two in his first season in charge in 2012. He is though, a fan of the conference structure introduced for this year’s Bob Willis Trophy competition.

“Don't get me wrong. I love Division one, Division Two, but I think sometimes that can breed a bit of short-termism in terms of recruitment.

“For instance, a team wanting to stay in Division One or get promoted, they’ll make some short-term decisions. I think the conference system could potentially eliminate that short-term decision making.”

However, Gillespie warned that he would not be in favour of a regional format where teams played the same opposition every season.

“You’d need to have a bit of a mixture, so you wouldn't want Sussex for instance, never playing north of London. I don’t think that would work. It’s for the lawmakers to come up with that. But it would be a shame if southern teams weren’t able to travel and play against northern teams, western teams and the like. I think we need a little bit more balance there.”

Gillespie is South Australia’s third-most capped Test player and believes that Sussex fast bowler Ollie Robinson also has what it takes to sustain a long international career.

“It’s been great for him to be in the England bubble [this summer] and we’ve been excited for him, hoping he’d get a game, but that hasn’t quite transpired.

“He bowls very good pace. He’s very accurate. He’s a Test Match quality bowler. It’s as simple as that.

“He’s very well planned, very well researched. He prepares well. He analyses the opposition as well as anyone I’ve seen. Although he comes across as bit of a laid-back character, he’s a cricket badger. He knows the stats for every player that he comes up against. He knows their strengths, he knows areas that he can maybe target as a bowler. I’ve got no doubt that given the opportunity he’ll thrive at the next level.”

Gillespie said Sussex had made progress particularly in white ball cricket, reaching the final of the Blast in 2018 and finishing top of their group last year. There has been less success in Championship cricket although he has started to see real progress during the Bob Willis Trophy.

“There's a lot of growth there. I'm very excited. That's why it was such a difficult decision to step down at the end of the season because I see such potential. I've been really energised these last few weeks as head coach.

“These last couple of years in four-day cricket, particularly last year, I just felt we were treading water a little bit. I'll put my hand up. I think at times, we made a couple of short-term decisions. If I had my time again, probably would have done a couple of things a little bit differently.

“We just didn’t play well enough last year. You need your contributions from your senior players, which allows the younger guys coming into the system the opportunity to just learn and develop. So, you need the senior players doing their jobs and, and at times last year, we certainly didn't have that.”

Overall though Gillespie is happy with the progress being made, although he is aware some supporters may question Sussex’s four-day record this year – won one, lost three. He stresses though that it is important to manage expectations on some of the youngsters coming into the team, to give them support and trust them to do their jobs.

“We're getting some games into some young guys who haven't had opportunities before and they've got a lot of potential. People talk about who's playing, who's in the team, who’s not in the team. We'll just put that out of our heads. We're doing what we believe is the right thing. We’re all on the same page and we strongly believe we're moving in the right direction.”