Yorkshire hope Jason Gillespie can be persuaded to remain at the club beyond the end of the season after their title-winning head coach was believed to have turned down the chance of joining Australia’s management set-up.
The Australia head coach, Darren Lehmann, who is in the country for a meeting of the ICC Cricket Committee at Lord’s this week, met Gillespie in Leeds on Sunday night after the first day of Yorkshire’s Roses match with Lancashire to discuss the opportunity of becoming his side’s bowling coach. Gillespie, who stated his happiness in the Yorkshire job last week, is known to hold reservations about the time spent away from his family that such a position would entail, meaning his close friend Lehmann is now expected to begin looking elsewhere for a potential candidate.
The Australia position may not be the only option on the table for the 41-year-old Gillespie, however, with interest from a number of Indian Premier League franchises. He could even combine his role coaching Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League by taking over South Australia’s Sheffield Shield team.
His appeal stems from five years in charge of Yorkshire’s first team, under the director of cricket, Martyn Moxon, that began with immediate promotion to Division One before the side went on to win back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015. In their 70 championship matches under Gillespie they have lost only four times.
Were he to leave, Yorkshire will hope his time at the club ends with a hat-trick of titles - a feat last achieved by the club in the 1960s. Gloucestershire’s Royal London Cup-winning head coach, Richard Dawson, the former off-spinner who was Yorkshire’s second XI coach for one season in 2014, would probably feature among the list of possible replacements for Gillespie.
The former Australia fast bowler was interviewed for the England head coach role last summer only to miss out to Trevor Bayliss when the director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, opted for a candidate with more silverware in limited-overs cricket. Yorkshire went on to give Gillespie their blessing to coach Adelaide Strikers in the off-season last winter hoping it would help his coaching development in white-ball cricket and give him valuable time back in Australia.
