Move away from Yorkshire CCC pays off as Anthony McGrath delivers for Essex

Trouble is, Anthony McGrath had to leave the county of his birth, the county where he made his name, to find the environment to thrive in and the backing to execute his vision and deliver those triumphs.

For the first 40 years of his life, McGrath was as Yorkshire as puddings and Ilkley Moor.

Born into a sporting family in Bradford in 1975, it was not long before his cricketing potential was spotted by county scouts and he was playing in the first team by his final year as a teenager.

For 17 years, McGrath represented Yorkshire with great distinction, captaining them twice, earning England honours. He began his coaching career with his home county as well, working as a consultant with the players and staff members he knew so well, until as his fifth decade approached, an offer came in that would turn his life upside down by taking him out of the comfort zone he had known for so long.

Essex wanted to give McGrath a pathway to the top, and in February, 2016, McGrath took the plunge.

Safe to say, he has not looked back.

“Moving away was the right decision,” reflected McGrath, when speaking at the House of Lord’s last month after Essex were presented with the County Championship trophy for the second time in three years.

“Because I’d always been at one club as a player, if I wanted to be realistic about furthering my coaching career, I wouldn’t do that just at Yorkshire, I’d need to see how other clubs did things in different parts of the country, with different cultures.

“It wasn’t an easy decision. When you move away, family is part and parcel of the decision.

“You’re not just going for your job and looking to progress your career, you’re moving away from an area you’ve lived all your life, so it becomes bigger than a cricketing decision.

“You need that life-work balance, so it was a huge decision but I’m so glad I did it.

“You can get cocooned in one area and have only one way to look at things, so it’s given me another experience and it has made me a better person and a better coach because of that.”

How he has thrived, working for the first two years under fellow Yorkshireman Chris Silverwood, with Essex in Division Two and going nowhere fast.

By the time Silverwood moved on to a role within the England set-up, Essex were county champions and McGrath was a natural successor as head coach.

“When I first came to the club as assistant coach, Essex were primarily viewed as a white-ball team,” says McGrath.

“They were in the Second Division and hadn’t been in the top division since 2010. We quickly wanted to address that and make red-ball cricket relevant and important again.

“That was the first job, as well as to keep maintaining a challenge in the white-ball game.

“It’s difficult to do that, but what we did find was that the red-ball form turned round quicker than we thought – promotion to Division One and winning the title within two years was far and above what we expected.

“The challenge now is to maintain that and keep Essex at the forefront of the County Championship.”

That they most certainly did in McGrath’s second full season as head coach, winning a second County Championship title in three years and the Vitality Blast T20.

“In 2017 we were front-runners all through the season, whereas in 2019, Somerset got off to flier, we lost our first game so we were always playing catch-up,” continues McGrath.

“With the knowledge we’d got from before, though, we always felt that if we got to within a position to strike, we had that experience and know-how to do it.

“We also started really poorly in the T20 so literally the last six, seven weeks of the season we were playing knockout cricket, both in T20 and county cricket.

“If we’d have lost one game we wouldn’t have qualified for T20, and if we’d have lost a game in the Championship, Somerset would have been too far in front.

“So there was a huge amount of pressure on us to maintain those performance levels, and that’s a huge testament to the lads.”

He may have only been in the top job three-and-a-half years but it is long enough to make him adept in the coaches’ speak of deflecting the credit.

“It’s a bit of a cliche but it’s everyone. As coaches what we do is prepare them but once they step over that white line it’s down to the players, the decision-making, the runs, the wickets, the catches,” he says.

So what next? Well, a title defence is on hold due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown of cricket.

But what about beyond then?

“To be honest, I just do the job in front of me and everything else will take care of itself,” says the 44-year-old.

“It’s dangerous when you look too far in front, you can take your eye off the ball a little bit.

“I’m enjoying it in Essex, I’ve only been here four years. I’ll just hope to continue doing a good job and see where that takes me.”

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