Jason Gillespie named South Australia coach with task to rebuild

Former South Australia spearhead and the Adelaide Strikers coach Jason Gillespie has been named as the next coach of the Redbacks, after the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) followed the advice of its high-performance reviewer Michael Hussey to place Big Bash League and state teams under the guidance of one supremo.

Gillespie was settled upon by an interview panel comprising Hussey, the SACA chief executive Keith Bradshaw, SA high performance chief Tim Nielsen, Cricket Australia executive Belinda Clark and the former selection CA chairman Rod Marsh. He edged out a wide range of other candidates, including the likes of Rob Cassell, Chris Rogers and Ryan Harris.

Gillespie, 45, is currently one year into a deal with Sussex in English county cricket that had been due to keep him with the county until 2022 and allowed him to split his time with the Strikers but there will now be a permanent return home. Sussex confirmed on Tuesday that Gillespie would leave at the end of the 2020 season.

If Sussex reach the finals of the T20 Blast the season will stretch to October 3 although there is currently no schedule for the Australia domestic summer amid the challenge of drawing up a fixture list in the current climate.

"I'm deeply honoured to be afforded the opportunity to coach the South Australian cricket team," Gillespie said. "The chance to work with the players, coaches and off field team at the SACA is very exciting. Team SACA is something I'm very much looking forward to being a part of."

Keith Bradshaw, the SACA chief executive, said: "The South Australian men's head coaching role is the most important in South Australian cricket, and we know that Jason is the right person to invigorate our program and push it forward. He is a proud South Australian with a phenomenal coaching resume behind him, we have seen how he has worked with the Strikers, leading them to their first title, and I know Jason will give it his all to steer the Redbacks in the right direction."

As coach of the Strikers since 2015, when he brokered a deal that allowed him to coach Yorkshire in England, Gillespie has overseen much the more successful of the two programs, winning the BBL in 2018 and also making the tournament finals on two other occasions, including last season when they finished third on the table.

Over the same period, the Redbacks have seen results decline alarmingly from a position where, coached by Gillespie's former state captain Jamie Siddons, they reached the Sheffield Shield final in both 2016 and 2017. A steep slide firmly to the bottom of Australian cricket's domestic rankings finally resulted in Siddons' exit from the job earlier this year.

Faced with such a marked decline, also pockmarked by problems at high performance pathway and grade cricket levels, the SACA Board called in Hussey to lead a review of the organisation's elite cricket program, resulting in a document that articulated many long-standing troubles in the state.

Hussey's calls for a balance "between people who know the SA way and people from outside the state who have worked in successful programmes" and also the merging of the Redbacks and Strikers organisations seemed to draw a pretty clear circle around the appointment of Gillespie to the wider role, after his success with Yorkshire and then the Strikers.

"As one of the smaller populated states, depth is always tested and as a result SA will regularly need to 'punch above its weight'," Hussey wrote. "For this to happen, the SACA will need to think and act differently in some areas of its cricket high performance.

"If the SACA wants to move forward then there must be change. Building relationships and trust from the bottom up and from the top down will require strong, consistent leadership. There will have to be an element of letting go of the past and focusing on the future. Unfortunately, a strong view from the people interviewed is that South Australian cricket has had a culture of mediocrity for many years and acceptance of it has been a barrier to success."

It remains to be seen whether Hussey's other recommendations, including the appointment of a highly regarded batting coach and a reduction in the number of Adelaide grade clubs, will be followed up in the wake of Gillespie's looming appointment.

Siddons had been captain of SA's most recent Shield-winning combination as far back in 1996. It now appears that responsibility for improving the state's results and also its production line of international players will now rest with Gillespie, the pace bowling spearhead of that team, who was himself mentored by the 1996 Shield-winning coach, Jeff Hammond.