Shane Warne has emerged as a leading candidate to coach the Southampton-based team in The Hundred.
The new 100-ball tournament is starting to take on an international flavour as regards its expected head coaches, with the county boards in charge of running the eight sides keen on high-profile names.
Darren Lehmann, the former Australia head coach and Yorkshire favourite, has already been linked with the Leeds team, while the Birmingham hierarchy have expressed a desire to recruit Trevor Bayliss after he steps down as England head coach this September.
And now the Ageas Bowl-based side are understood to be considering an approach for Warne. The former Australia leg-spinner’s experience as a head coach is relatively minimal but he could well view it as a mentoring role that utilises more hands-on assistant coaches.
Warne, who has coached and mentored Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League, has links at Hampshire from his playing days, having captained the county for four seasons and has a stand at the ground named after him.
Jason Gillespie, whose short-form coaching CV includes winning the Big Bash League with Adelaide Strikers in 2017-18, is another name being mentioned for the role. As the current head coach of Sussex, who are the second county on the board that is running the Southampton side, it may be he is required to work elsewhere.
Elsewhere, the Cardiff team are said to be keen on the former India and South Africa head coach Gary Kirsten, while the Nottingham team are reportedly considering Stephen Fleming, the New Zealander who captained at Trent Bridge during his playing days and is now a leading coach on the Twenty20 circuit.
With The Hundred due to last five weeks – and salaries rumoured to be £80,000 – the tournament will, pro-rata, represent some of the best-paid coaching work going. The fear however is that English candidates may miss out or take up lesser assistant roles.
Nottinghamshire’s Peter Moores, arguably still the leading head coach in English cricket, has been told he is not in line for the Trent Bridge role as Leicestershire and Derbyshire – the two other counties on the team’s board – want differentiation from the host county. Moores is free to seek work at another team, however.
Appointments are expected to be made once new companies are set up in the next month, with team names and branding to follow before the player draft for the inaugural 2020 season to takes place this October.