Raj Maru: The former Hampshire spinner behind Lancing College's talent factory

NICK FRIEND: Maru spent 27 years as player and coach at Hampshire, before moving onto the school circuit, where Mason Crane became his protégé

For many, moving into the post-playing world is a difficult transition to make. For Raj Maru, it was quite the opposite.

The day after his retirement, the former left-arm spinner took over the development of Hampshire’s youngsters, the county for whom he claimed 504 first-class wickets. He struggled initially when watching his former teammates, with a voice in his head telling him he could do better. Otherwise, it was a seamless shift.

By then, he had already laid much of the groundwork, coaching at the club through the winter months since the mid-1980s.

“They always said that when I finished playing there would be a job at the end of it,” he tells The Cricketer.

They were true to their word: he continued in the role until he realised it was time for a change, having missed out through the demands of professional cricket on spending time with his children, whose summer holidays came when his schedule was at its busiest – first as player, then as coach.

All told, he spent 27 years at Hampshire, before breaking out to establish his own spin academy, which he ran for two years. On the side, he had worked part-time at Portsmouth Grammar School, looking after their first team and running holiday courses.

When a job came up at Lancing College as director of cricket, he leapt at it – the best of both worlds, as he saw it: a chance to further his passion for teaching the game, but also an opportunity to reclaim a part of his life he had missed out on. The long hours were offset by sizeable holidays. “I’d get home every night and I’d be able to see my kids and wife,” he adds.

^{Maru during his Hampshire playing days}

Needless to say, it has worked out well. Now more than a decade into the job, he takes equal satisfaction from introducing the game to novices and turning talented teenagers into professional athletes.

“As long as I can get people on the park playing and enjoying the game, then that’s brilliant,” he explains. That attitude perhaps stems from his own journey, as a child who moved to England in 1972 from Kenya after his father, a mechanic, was headhunted by Mercedes Benz.

“I was only about eight years old when we came over,” Maru recalls. “My first school was Oakington Manor in Wembley. We were playing rounders and the teacher said: ‘Do you play cricket?’ I went and had a trial, he picked me in an older age-group team at school and then he sent me for Brent Schools trials.

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“I got in, played there for two years and then got spotted by Jack Robertson at Middlesex when I was nine to play in the Middlesex under-10 squad. And that’s how it all started really.”

His first day at Lancing was also Mason Crane’s first day, and the pair have forged a longstanding relationship that continues to this day, even with the leg-spinner now 24 years of age and an England international. “I spoke to him quite a lot while he was in Sri Lanka with England this winter about how things were going,” says Maru. “Any time there’s a little tweak to do, we’ll have a look now and again. If I see him on television bowling or I go to the ground to watch him bowl, if I see something then we get in touch and talk about it and work on it.”

^{Mason Crane started at Lancing on the same day as Maru}

They have also arranged for Crane to speak to Lancing’s sport scholars via Zoom in the coming weeks to discuss his path to the top and the challenges that accompany a career in elite sport.

Maru compares Crane’s mentality to that of Liam Dawson, another whose formative years he oversaw during his time in the Hampshire setup. James Vince too – he coached his Hampshire Under-17s side to the Championship title in 2007, while Danny Briggs is another England cricketer whose development has been assisted by the 58-year-old’s wisdom.

He recalls of watching Crane for the first time: “Having worked in that field for a long time with Hampshire and having seen people like Dawson and Vince come through from 10 years old, you see somebody like Mason and you think: ‘Well, I can do something with that.’”

Crane was not yet in Hampshire’s setup and, in fact, had just been let go by Sussex when he arrived at Lancing. “He joined Lancing because when he came for his interview, they told him that I was joining the school,” adds Maru.

“I phoned up Hampshire and I said: ‘Look, I don’t want him to miss out on county age-group winter training sessions. So, can he train with you?’ Knowing that age-group, which also had Joe Weatherley and Brad Taylor, there weren’t that many spinners coming through. He joined Hampshire and has never looked back since.

“He’s a very intelligent young man. He takes things on board very quickly. If things make sense to him, he will do it.”

^{South East Stars batsman Alice Capsey is the latest talent to come through under Maru's watch}

Indeed, it was not long after leaving school as a 20-year-old that he was making his Ashes debut.

Maru’s latest protégée is Alice Capsey, the South East Stars teenager who has so impressed in the early steps of her career.

His philosophy is simple: “If I can’t get them to be an England cricketer, I’d like them to be a county cricketer. If I can’t get them to be a county cricketer, then I’d like them to be a club cricketer or a schoolboy cricketer or a district cricketer.

“There is cricket for everybody at all different levels: disability cricket to girls’ cricket to boys’ cricket. I just want kids to play cricket and have fun. That’s my passion.”