Leaving Yorkshire CCC for a time was a good thing for my coaching career says Anthony McGrath

He joined Essex in 2016 as assistant to his former Yorkshire team-mate Chris Silverwood before succeeding him as head coach and then becoming the club’s director of cricket too.

Now he is back with a CV that glitters brighter than a Christmas bauble having signed a five-year deal as the Yorkshire head coach.

“I think it was a good thing that I left if I was going to be serious about coaching,” said McGrath, who played for Yorkshire from 1995 to 2012 before rejoining the set-up in 2014 as a mentor/coach.

“When you’ve only been at one place, you think it would be great to stay there forever, but to get different experiences is what rounds you as a person.

“There’s not just one way of doing things – there’s 18 first-class counties and countless other places around the world, too.

“Hopefully, with the experiences I’ve had, I can bring back the good bits and try and implement that into the good stuff that’s already here.”

McGrath, 49, who started work last month, has brought back the experience of having twice helped Essex to the County Championship title, to the T20 Blast title and the Bob Willis Trophy.

In his seven seasons as Essex head coach, the club was always a force to be reckoned with.

“I’ve been around good coaches, bad coaches, know what works in a team and always kind of kept a note of those experiences and tried to amalgamate them into what I think a good team looks like,” he added.

“Not just on the field, but off the field with the other coaches as well, and to be really clear with those coaches about what we’re trying to do.

“It’s not about people going off on their own. It’s about having good relationships and being really clear with things.”

A move back to Yorkshire, said McGrath, had not been on the radar.

He was effectively headhunted by the club to help it take the next steps towards success, a tribute to the work that he has done and the reputation he has established.

“I wasn’t thinking of other jobs, if I’m being honest,” he said.

“A couple of opportunities did arise and I have done some franchise stuff, but it was really focusing on Essex and I think I’ve always been a person who doesn’t look too far ahead. ’Just do the best you can in that role, and then other things will come’ is basically the thing.

"Inevitably, you’re never going to be in one place forever, but I didn’t ever think, ‘Well, I’ll do this, and this will be a chance to get to Yorkshire’, or anything like that.

"I just think the timings have kind of aligned.”

It was a very hard decision to leave Chelmsford, he has said.

Indeed, McGrath will forever be grateful to Essex for giving him an opportunity to work as a head coach in the first place.

“I’ll always be grateful to them because I’d not done a lot of coaching at the time that I went down there,” he reflected.

“Obviously, I knew Chris Silverwood already, but when he left I’d only really been coaching a short period of time, so for them to give me the chance to be head coach meant a lot, and then you just get so immersed in the team and it’s your team then.

“It was a really hard decision to go because I loved my time there.

"We had a good amount of success and were still building, so it was very, very difficult and I went over it quite a lot.

“I just think it was the right time to have another challenge and take on something else.

"When you’ve been in one place for 10 years, as I was at Essex, you get used to a way of working, and it’s going to be new somewhere else, of course, but I think that’s healthy.

“It’s freshened me up already. It’s exciting. It’s a new project, so I think it’s been the right decision.

“Also for Essex… after nearly a decade there, I think it’s a good time for them as well in terms of having a new voice.”

Regarding his coaching aspirations going forward, McGrath reiterated that he is not looking further than the present.

“I’ve done some stuff in the Big Bash but, honestly, there are no big ambitions,” he said.

“Some people find it strange, like you’ve got to have a plan, and ‘Where are you going?’, but I honestly don’t.

“I just think, as I did at Essex, my sole focus now is Yorkshire.

"To me, it doesn’t matter whether you have a one, three or five-year contract. My focus is to try and make the team as good as it possibly can be.

“What will happen, will happen. I seriously just want to try and do the best job possible.

"I’m not thinking of what’s next, or what could happen in the future.

"My only target is for Yorkshire to be successful.”