Tom Moody recruited by Oval franchise for The Hundred

HUW TURBERVILL: The news is believed to have been delayed by some counties not yet signing contracts that will set the competition in stone

Tom Moody is poised to join the Australian contingent in charge of coaching the new Hundred teams, when he is appointed by the Oval Invincibles.

The news is believed to have been delayed by some counties not yet signing contracts that will set the competition in stone. The Times reported that there were grievances over governance, who owns the competition, as well as concern about the downgrading of domestic 50-over cricket a year after England won the World Cup.

The ECB have been keen to press ahead in an effort to try to silence the sceptics however. At time of going to press four men’s teams had named their coaches: Simon Katich (the side expected to be known as Manchester Originals), Andrew McDonald (Birmingham Phoenix) and Shane Warne (London Spirit). Darren Lehmann is expected to be with Northern Superchargers. The only non-Australian so far confirmed is South African Gary Kirsten, with Western (was Wales) Fury. 

Now Moody is poised to make it an Australian quintet, with the appointment expected in the last week of August. The post was advertised in The Times. 

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Moody coached Sunrisers Hyderabad to the 2016 Indian Premier League and is director of cricket at the Caribbean Premier League. He has also coached Multan Sultans, Rangpur Riders and Montreal Tigers, and was director of cricket at Melbourne Renegades.

He led Sri Lanka to the 2007 World Cup final, and played eight Tests and 76 ODIs for Australia. He shone at Worcestershire, where he was also director of cricket.

One of the complaints about The Hundred is the lack of English head coaches, although it is pointed out that many will be busy with their counties for the ‘development’ 50-over competition which will runs concurrently.

Andrew Strauss believes The Hundred presents a “great opportunity” to promote English coaches. “Some of those teams will have their reasons for appointing an experienced coach who has coaching in T20 elsewhere in the world. You can completely understand that,” Strauss said. “There is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation in terms of unless English coaches get the opportunity, how can they get the experience.

“We’ve always got to look for opportunities for our English coaches to get more experience than just doing county coaching gigs. They need to do more than that if they’re going to be viable candidates for England jobs. Some of the good young English coaches are involved in the England team like Paul Collingwood and Chris Silverwood. They might have had some appeal to The Hundred teams but actually they’re involved with the England team.”

Lydia Greenway is likely to coach the Oval Invincibles women. She follows Matthew Mott (Cardiff) and Lisa Keightley (London Spirit).