McDonald: "You don't need a title to be a leader"

Elite Performance Director Andrew McDonald is looking to utilise all of the experience in his squad to continue on-field progress at Leicestershire County Cricket Club in 2016.

The club recently announced its leadership structure for the new season with Mark Cosgrove remaining as Club Captain and leading the team in the County Championship.

Additional responsibilities were given to Paul Horton as Cosgrove’s vice captain while Mark Pettini will skipper the white ball side and Clint McKay will be his deputy.

McDonald explained that the decision to split the captaincy was made along similar lines to those made with the squad’s playing workloads. The county season tests everybody both physically and mentally and McDonald wants people to share responsibility.

“In reviewing both formats of the game we felt that the burden on one captain across the three formats is a huge ask,” said McDonald. “We wanted to freshen Cozzie (Mark Cosgrove) up in that format, and give him every opportunity to give us every opportunity to excel.

“Every season we set out to win all three titles and with the workload across all three formats we felt we weren’t giving ourselves the best opportunity to do that. We’ll also have to balance workloads in terms of getting our bowlers right for certain conditions in certain games.

“It’s a long season, so we’ve got to be smart in the way we pick sides. We have to make sure we are picking the right teams at the right times to make sure that we’re getting the maximum out of everybody.”

McDonald said that in one sense it wasn’t easy to select people for the roles because of the amount of options he had available. But the overall aim wasn’t to pick out individuals as instead, McDonald, is keen for everybody to lead when the opportunity presents itself.

He said: “We had some really good candidates and one thing I have stressed to the group is that you don’t need a title to be a leader. We’re trying to make sure we have leaders right across the group, whether they have the title of captain or vice captain next to their name or not. We feel we have some strong leaders outside the four players that have been announced.

“There’s a lot of experience in the squad including Cozzie, who picked up a lot from his first season in charge. Paul Horton has led Lancashire successfully so we feel he is the right man to be Cozzie’s deputy and Mark Pettini has been outstanding in what he has contributed to the group.

“Clint McKay has a lot of nous and can put his expertise across for Mark to bounce ideas off, so we have good captains and some good support networks for the guys at the top across both competitions. We really wanted to split red ball and white ball and I’m very comfortable with who we have in charge.”

As an example of how McDonald wants the leadership group to work, he points to the impact that new signings Horton, Pettini and Neil Dexter have made since joining the club in the close season.

Those three players are passing on their expertise and are helping McDonald with some succession planning. McDonald wants the younger professionals to soak up their knowledge including Ned Eckersley, who will have learnt a lot from his time as vice captain in 2015.

He said: “Paul and Mark love to talk about the game and educate the younger guys and they have made a real commitment to coming in and helping our younger players. Neil Dexter is the same and he’ll form part of our leadership group too.

“When the players go out of training, even if it’s just to have lunch and a drink, it’s important to have good cricket conversations with senior players passing on their knowledge. I think that was what was probably lacking last year. If you don’t know what good leadership looks like, it’s hard to talk about it.

“Younger players are seeing how quality individuals go about their preparation in the off-season and that can only benefit them. Cozzie and Clint can’t be around at this time of year, but if they were, they would be doing the same.

“I’m hoping that younger players like Ned Eckersley, Angus Robson, Ben Raine, Aadil Ali and Rob Sayer will learn off them and get involved in enough conversations to progress into a leadership role in time.

“Ned is the unfortunate one to miss out after being vice captain last year. He understands where the group is at and the role he will play, and he will be given some development opportunities around leadership.

“There will be a succession plan for when this leadership group do go out, because we recognise that they are the other side of 30. So we have to have the next group coming through and we are really committed to development and growth in our younger leaders. There will be a specific programme around that.”

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