Ottis Gibson opens up on "very disappointing" Yorkshire exit
OTTIS GIBSON has spoken of his frustration that he is leaving Yorkshire with unfinished business, describing the club’s decision to remove him as “very disappointing”.
After Yorkshire secured their fifth win in six County Championship games, effectively sealing their return to Division One, the head coach admitted that he was sorry to be going as he talked for the first time about his departure.
Yorkshire announced at the start of last month that Gibson would not be continuing in the role, with the club wishing to move in a different direction amid suggestions that Anthony McGrath, the former Yorkshire and England batsman, is favourite to replace him despite having recently added the director of cricket position to those of his duties as head coach at Essex.
The timing of Gibson’s departure could not have been criticised earlier in the campaign - Yorkshire had gone winless in 30 of his 34 Championship matches in charge prior to their present fine run.
Now it can, and it was not hard to read between the lines as he reflected on his situation after Friday’s win against Glamorgan in Cardiff.
“The thing is, and there’s a little bit of frustration in this, when I came in three years ago and I sat with Goughy (Darren Gough, the then managing director of cricket), the way things were at the club, and all the stuff that was going on behind the scenes with the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board), we thought it would be at least a five-year project,” said Gibson.
“We thought it would take at least that amount of time to try and build the club back up, build the morale back up in the team, start playing well and start competing again.
“We got relegated in the first year, and that was obviously never in the plan, but now we’re three years into a five-year plan and you can see how the guys are playing, so to be told that this is going to be it, that it’s going to be curtailed after three years is very disappointing, to be fair.
“But, having said that, if we can get the club back into the First Division at year three in a five-year plan, and leave it for the next guy to come in and take it on, then that’s great, too.”
Gibson, 55, came into the job at the most difficult time in any club’s history after Yorkshire had been felled by the racism crisis.
It had a ‘doomed project’ feel about it from the start, not that Gibson felt so personally, a feeling capped off by relegation as Yorkshire dropped out of the top-flight for the first time since 2011.
“You’re always unhappy if you’re losing your job, but it is what it is,” said Gibson. “The decision’s been made, and I’ve come to terms with it already, but I’m hopefully leaving the club in a better place than I found it, absolutely.
“In life, you never know where the end is; for me, the end is here, at year three, but hopefully we can end the year successfully by winning promotion.”
Yorkshire need a maximum of 10 points from their final game against Northamptonshire at Headingley next week to reach that target. Gibson said that the spirit among the players speaks for itself and suggested he will be handing over the happiest of ships.
“The environment around the dressing room is brilliant,” he said. “The lads are loving each other, they’re talking, they’re laughing.
“You’ve got five, six, seven, eight, nine guys going out for team meals, impromptu team meals, whereas normally you’d have two guys going here, two guys going there, and so on. Instead, everybody’s going out together, sitting having dinner together, talking about stuff together, talking about the game together.
"Of course, winning helps, but the environment around the dressing room is fantastic.”
Adding that he hopes to have Jonny Bairstow available again next week, and perhaps Shan Masood after one-day duty in Pakistan, Gibson said: “I’m generally not an emotional person, but hopefully I’ll be able to keep things together and we can win and go up.”