Yorkshire: Great learning experience for Gale with Hurricanes

The Yorkshire coach spent approximately a month as a member of the support staff with Tasmania’s state side and the Hobart Hurricanes.

Gale says his time helping players such as Jofra Archer, D’Arcy Short, Matthew Wade and George Bailey was “ideal” and admits he gained significant confidence in his own personal methods and those of the White Rose backroom staff overall.

“It was a fantastic experience for me, to get a feel for a different environment,” said the former batsman, who observed methods around one Sheffield Shield match and the opening Big Bash fixture as well as preparations for the latter.

“They made me feel very welcome.

“I was very hands on from day one, so it was ideal.

“It was valuable to see a different environment and the way their coaches worked and how the players reacted to them.”

Gale worked alongside head coach Adam Griffith and continued: “It’s a great set-up there.

“I was able to see what plans they had in place and contrast and compare to here at Yorkshire.

“I got a lot of confidence from it because they do a lot of stuff that is pretty similar.

“I got a lot of confidence in my own coaching because I was doing that hands on stuff, which you don’t always get to do as a head coach. You’re more man managing and organising.

“I was just helping out when and where they needed me. I was able to sit in the background and help people individually, and I think the lads took to me really well.”

They must have taken to him well given the Hurricanes have won six of their opening seven and sit top of the table and in pole position to reach the semi-finals with a top four finish.

The Gale effect?

“I’m not so sure about that!” he laughed.

“But it’s good to know the plans they had in place the two weeks building up to it have worked.

“You could tell they were going to be successful because they have a settled team, quite a lot of experienced players, and they’ve kept a lot of the players that got them to last year’s final.

“They have a lot of role clarity in their squad.

“Looking at our T20 campaign last year, that was a problem for us. We won the first four games or something and things were going well in that regard. Then we had the England players back, which upset that role clarity.

“You can see why we’ve gone down the recruitment route we have and why some of the players we had have moved on.”

Gale is hopeful the Hurricanes will convert their early season form into silverware next month.

“It’s different when you get to the knockouts because it’s all on one game, but I certainly think they’ll get to the knockout stages and hopefully do well,” he said.

“The Australian selections have worked for them, not losing D’Arcy Short and Ben McDermott.

“They also have some good young players. Riley Meredith, their fast bowler, stands out.

“There’s no reason why they can’t go all the way.”

Gale says he gained confidence from the fact that both Tasmania and Hobart do similar things to Yorkshire in terms of preparation and strategy.

But what about different things Gale picked up?

“A few of their Key Performance Indicators were slightly different to ours.

“Key Performance Indicators - such as how many runs you’d want to be off the first six overs, how many wickets you’re happy losing in the first 10. With the ball, how you’re going to go about your business up front or at the back end.

“But we have to have the right personnel in place to play in that fashion. There’s no point going away from playing to your strengths.

“In the four-day stuff as well, their KPIs were very different to what we’ve got. That’s something I’ll be looking into.”

Gale is back overseeing Yorkshire’s preparations for the new season and building up to their pre-season training camp in Potchefstroom through mid-March.

“Most of the lads are back in training now,” he said.

“We’ve done things slightly different this winter in giving the senior players more ownership of their own games in the lead up to Christmas.

“So they haven’t been in quite as much. I want to keep them as mentally fresh as I can.

“We’ll build right up to Potch’ now and do three weeks on and one week off.

“We know the areas we want to improve both individually and as a team. We’ll build it up as we go along.”

Yorkshire’s new signings Will Fraine, Josh Poysden and Mat Pillans have all been training hard since November, and Gale is very hopeful the recruitment drive has not finished, adding: “I’m pretty confident that we’re going to bring in at least one player in the short term.”