Australian cricket great Michael Bevan says he hasn’t coached the struggling NSW cricket team despite his services being trumpeted on the eve of the season.
In August, Cricket NSW announced Bevan and Shane Watson would be helping out the NSW Blues as coaching consultants in an effort to bring fresh voices into the team.
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Former Test fast bowlers Stuart Clark and Geoff Lawson also joined NSW’s selection panel.
Cricket NSW chief Lee Gorman said at the time: “All of these guys come with extremely accomplished resumes, and they have NSW cricket and the Blues in their DNA. That will bring a renewed edge to our structure and the playing group.”
“By bringing in the collective experience and world-class skills of Michael Bevan and Shane Watson, we have added to our off-field support structure.”
Veteran Sydney Sixers coach Greg Shipperd took over as coach and Moises Henriques returned to the captaincy after Phil Jacques and Kurtis Patterson exited those roles following a poor run of form.
NSW haven’t won a Sheffield Shield game since February 2022, a losing streak that has now stretched to 15 matches.
NSW suffered back to back losses to Victoria and South Australia, the perennial battlers of domestic cricket, to sit on the bottom of the Sheffield Shield table after three matches.
The Blues are on five points, while Tasmania and Western Australia lead the competition on 17 points.
So it made sense to enlist the services to two NSW and Australian greats.
But while Watson worked with the team in pre-season, Bevan has revealed he never actually began working as a batting consultant and hasn’t had the chance to impart the knowledge that saw him score 46 half centuries in ODI cricket for Australia.
Bevan wrote on X: “It was announced pre season that I would be working with @CricketNSW as a batting consultant – to date, this hasn’t happened.
“Given the timing, I feel it is important that the current coaches are afforded every opportunity to stamp their quality and be allowed to guide cricket nsw back to a position of strength within @CricketAus.”
“Unfortunately this means, this year they won’t be receiving the magical bevo “finishing” methodology. Maybe next year.”
NSW’s plight is a concerning reality given half of the Australian Test side is made up of players from the state — Steve Smith, David Warner along with the bowling attack of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon.
Not even the return of Test spinner Lyon, who took just a single wicket for the game against Victoria, could help arrest a worrying form slide for the one-time domestic powerhouse.
“We‘re going to have to look deep and an analyse and learn; see what we’re doing and see what the best are doing and see how we can adapt better,” Henriques said.
“They‘re the age-old cricket questions but unfortunately we’re just not doing it very well at the moment.
“It was a pretty poor batting performance, especially in the first innings. It’s a team issue at the moment, we are not quite doing what we need to be doing in both batting and bowling.”
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