RICH PYRAH will take the next step on the coaching ladder this winter by spending time in Australia with Jason Gillespie.

The Yorkshire all-rounder, 32, has designs on a coaching career once he hangs up his boots, and he has already achieved the Level Three qualification with the ECB.

Pyrah will start studying for Level Four at the end of the ongoing summer as well as travelling Down Under to work with Gillespie’s Big Bash Twenty20 team Adelaide Strikers.

Last winter, the county’s beneficiary for 2015 also spent time in South Africa as the head coach on a ProCoach Cricket Academy tour alongside county captain Andrew Gale.

Now, as part of a month Down Under, Pyrah will also work with Aaron Finch’s Twenty20 team Melbourne Renegades and state side Victoria Bushrangers, for whom Finch and fellow White Rose team-mate Glenn Maxwell play.

Former Yorkshire all-rounder Anthony McGrath spoke earlier this season of his own ambitions to coach the county one day having taken on a job of as coaching consultant at the start of the year.

And it would be no surprise to see Pyrah take on the top job at Headingley in years to come.

"I think Rich could be a coach down the line, yes,” said Gillespie. "He's going to come out to Australia and get a bit of experience, and I think that will be great for him.

"He's going to be at Adelaide with me and the Strikers for a little while, but he's also going to spend some time with the Melbourne Renegades and the Victoria Bushrangers and will be out there for around about a month.

"He's starting his Level Four coaching over the winter, and it's just a good opportunity for him to see how things work on the other side of the world in different environments.

“Moving into coaching in the future is something he's thinking about doing, so that will be good for him to have three different experiences to look back upon.”

Pyrah has endured a frustrating season on the field, so far playing only two LV= County Championship matches, ten times in the NatWest T20 Blast and twice in the Royal London one-day Cup.

A loss of form midway through the T20s cost him a place in the limited overs team which he only won back in the RL50 at the start of this month.

Gillespie’s first of two years as coach of home town team Adelaide begins on December 18 and runs through until January 24 should the Strikers reach the Big Bash League final.