Battle of coaches can lead to thriller in Leeds

Yorkshire’s Martyn Moxon and Nottinghamshire’s Mick Newell have been hailed by their peers as the joint-best coaches in county cricket.

They topped a poll in this month’s Wisden Cricketer magazine – each garnering three votes from the 16 county coaches who took part in the survey.

It was deserved recognition for two of the most respected leaders in the business.

Moxon and Newell – two of the game’s genuinely good guys – go about their work as competitively as the next man, but they also do it in the right manner.

As such, they are popular with players and supporters alike and widely esteemed for their honesty and integrity.

One man perfectly placed to judge what makes them so regarded is Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale, who has worked with Moxon for the past four years and has just returned from a two-month England Lions tour of the West Indies led by Newell.

“They’re quite similar characters really,” said Gale.

“They’re both great blokes and pretty laid-back, but they know what they want and they go out and get it.

“Technically, they like to keep things simple, which is the way I like it as a player.

“They don’t go into great detail on techniques but emphasise the value of sticking to the basics.

“If you speak to anyone on the circuit about Martyn, they all speak very highly of him.

“He’s a quality coach and a genuinely nice guy – just like Mick.

“I got to know Mick well this winter and got on really well with him.

“As a player, you can only improve by working with people like that.”

Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire have followed different paths in recent years.

Whereas Newell has recruited sagaciously, taking punts on players that other counties might overlook and moulding his sides into more than the sum of their parts, Moxon has brought on a clutch of promising youngsters at cash-strapped Yorkshire and also at his previous county, Durham.

Although Newell has two Championship titles on his CV, Moxon laid the groundwork for Durham’s back-to-back titles in 2008 and 2009 and is constructing similar foundations at Headingley Carnegie.

“They’ve both got great records in their own right,” added Gale. “Mick has had a lot of success at Notts, whereas Martyn has had a lot of success bringing players through wherever he has been.

“Martyn left Durham at a time when they were just starting to reap the rewards of the hard work he put into all levels of the club.

“Unfortunately for us, we were on the wrong end of some of that hard work last week.

“Mick has signed players that other counties haven’t picked up – Shreck, Phillips, Adams, people like that.

“He takes punts on players and they seem to do well for him.

“Martyn has been brilliant at nurturing young talent and I know he’s desperate for success at Yorkshire.

“In their own ways, Martyn and Mick have done tremendous jobs.”

Moxon and Newell will be keen to put one over each other this week in a game that should tell us much about their respective team’s title aspirations.

Yorkshire did tremendously well to run Nottinghamshire and Somerset so close for the Championship last year – and, indeed, would have won the title but for a batting collapse on the final day of the season against Kent.

Nottinghamshire had the better of the fixture between the sides at Headingley last August on the back of a brilliant double hundred by David Hussey and would almost certainly have prevailed but for rain.

But Yorkshire hit back brilliantly to win at Trent Bridge in September thanks to a superlative century by Gale, who made 151 not out on a pitch on which Nottinghamshire had been routed for 59.

“That was up there with the best innings I’ve played for Yorkshire,” said Gale.

“It was quite a difficult pitch, and I managed to lead from the front.

“After not scoring runs last week, I want to replicate what I did at Trent Bridge last year and try to put together another match-winning performance this week. It’s another important game for both sides.”

Gale said Yorkshire had not yet performed to their optimum this season but stressed he was pleased with his players’ fighting spirit.

“Although we didn’t play well against Durham, we still put up a good fight,” he insisted.

“To take Durham into the last hour of the game after performing so badly, we can actually take a lot of positives from that.

“After the second day, I asked for character and attitude from the lads and that’s exactly what I got from them.

“They responded superbly.”