Complain all you like about overseas coaches in The Hundred, the competition is not set up for homegrown talent

SAM MORSHEAD: Neither the structure nor the scheduling offer an environment in which county coaches can be realistically expected to operate effectively

It seems at first glance like another stick with which to beat The Hundred. Another PR faux pas. Another opportunity to point out how the new competition’s puzzle seems to be made out of pieces from several dozen different boxes. 

But is there more to the appointment of an all-overseas set of head coaches for the men’s version of the tournament than meets the eye?

Over the course of the past few weeks, a steady stream of news has filtered out of ECB HQ and into the public consciousness, as the names of the men - and women - entrusted with overall charge of the eight franchises have steadily been released.

So far we know definitively of four. Simon Katich is off to Manchester, Andrew McDonald heads up the Birmingham side, Shane Warne takes the reins at Lord’s and Gary Kirsten is Cardiff bound.

To add to that, Tom Moody is soon to be confirmed as head coach of Oval Invincibles, while Darren Lehmann will take over at Northern Superchargers. Mahela Jayawardene has been linked with the Southampton franchise Southern Brave, too.

The appointments, on their own, do not seem to do an awful lot for the advancement of cricket on these shores and, as a result, the competition has once again faced substantial criticism - just as it has every day since it was hurriedly, some would say clumsily launched in April 2018. 

^{Shane Warne takes charge of the Lord's franchise}

But behind the scenes there was a sense of inevitability about foreign coaches being drafted in, for the first season of The Hundred at least.

Each of the eight franchises have been allocated around £130,000 for their coaching budgets, of which roughly half will be spent on the salary of the head coach. Around half-a-dozen coaching roles will need to be filled at each team. 

For what will amount to not much more than six weeks’ work, plus involvement in the draft process, £65,000 has proven enough to encourage some of the highest-rated T20 coaches in world cricket to apply. The Hundred also comes at a time when there are no other major franchise competitions in progress. One administrator described the job as “window-filler”. 

It is not as if homegrown coaches will not feature in the tournament at all.

Lower down, the management boards of each side are expected to look to employ support staff from their counties. For instance, it would not be a surprise to see a member of Surrey’s backroom team get a role under Moody, just as Alex Gidman of Worcestershire and Warwickshire's Jim Troughton will work with McDonald at Edgbaston.

The argument is that British coaches will get the chance to learn and develop in the first year of the competition - all the initial appointments have only been given single-season contracts - and who knows what will happen going forward. In theory, The Hundred is with us for at least five years - even if some doubt that will be the case.

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Physiotherapists and strength and conditioning coaches are also unlikely to be recruited from outside the counties who sit on their respective franchises’ management boards.

Given players from local counties are expected to make up the bulk of each team, there is a continuity aspect which needs to be taken into account. Players’ fitness regimes and nutrition can be better managed by support staff who work with them on a regular basis. 

Another pertinent question is whether existing county coaches see The Hundred as a worthwhile career move.

For those already in employment on the domestic circuit, the idea of leaving their teams for six weeks in the middle of the season - while a major, if scandalously downgraded, 50-over competition is in progress - may well be seen as a dereliction of duty.

County Championship cricket is due to start up again within a week of The Hundred concluding, and the T20 Blast knockout stages too. Would winning these trophies be more or less valuable on a coaching CV than a job in the ECB’s shiny new thing?

Is there actually a pathway for young, English and Welsh coaches which can legitimately include The Hundred as it currently sits in the domestic calendar?

^{Andrew McDonald is in charge in Birmingham}

How can a coach plan ahead, and ensure he or she fulfils his or her duties to a primary employer, when faced with the distraction of this six-week binge?

There is also the small question of a soon-to-be-vacant England head coach role. Trevor Bayliss leaves his post at the end of The Ashes, and anyone still wishing to be considered to be his successor would absolutely not be able to juggle that role with a position in The Hundred.

Alec Stewart is believed to be a frontrunner, while director of men’s cricket Ashley Giles is known to favour the appointment of an Englishman. Some of the highest-rated young English coaches are already working with the national side - Chris Silverwood and Paul Collingwood may well take on more responsibilities in a revamped coaching structure once Bayliss has left. Why would they give that up to switch to a two-month job in a fourth format that has no context in the international game?

Perhaps the most significant issue, however, is concern over potential conflicts of interest that might arise should a county’s director of cricket take control of a Hundred franchise.

The Cricketer has heard from several senior figures, all of whom expressed the same sentiment. They worry that man-management problems would arise should players from one county be overlooked in the draft, or drafted in a lower pay bracket, in order to accommodate players from other teams.

“It’s really troublesome,” one administrator said. “If you’ve got your county coach making that decision, it makes it impossible to walk back into his dressing room and look his players in the eye.”

For the seven franchises managed by more than one county - Manchester is the only exception - there is also a demand to balance power. An independent coach offers neutrality which a county coach may not.

Throw all the contributory factors together and it is understandable why none of the eight men’s sides will be fronted by homegrown talent. 

There are deeper themes to explore off the back of all this, of course.

^{Tom Moody is expected to be named coach of Oval Invincibles}

There are English coaches not working in senior positions in the county game who also have T20 franchise experience, but not many. 

Ian Pont - who has twice won the Bangladesh Premier League with Dhaka Gladiators and was due to take charge of Belfast Titans in the now-postponed Euro T20 Slam - is one. Another, ECB-qualified Donovan Miller - Caribbean born but London bred, is the current head coach of Jamaica Tallawahs in the CPL, previously held the same post with St Kitts & Nevis Patriots and led Vancouver Knights to the inaugural Global T20 Canada title last year.  

Beyond them - and Leicestershire head coach Paul Nixon, who has had success in the CPL - pickings are slim.

“We need to be exporting more British coaches into these leagues,” Pont tells The Cricketer. He put his name into the hat for The Hundred but never heard back.

“Maybe this situation will highlight how few are working around the world.”

Andrew Strauss this week said that The Hundred provided a “great opportunity” for English coaches to be appointed. But is that actually true?

Neither the structure nor the scheduling offer an environment in which county coaches can be realistically expected to operate effectively, and by taking part they could risk unsettling the dressing rooms which they have to manage for the other 46 weeks of the year.

The Cricketer knows of at least one franchise which did not receive a single homegrown application for its head coach role. 

Maybe, all things considered, that should not be a surprise.