Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2017

32 twitter: @scloverssociety Sheffield Cricket Lovers’ Society Talking England Women Mark Robinson This time last year if someone was to say I would be the Head Coach of the England Women’s Team I wouldn’t have believed them. A lot though can change in a short space of time. My daughter who is now just 16 has been playing cricket since she was 10. I naturally always helped out when I could. Ellie got herself selected in the Sussex age group squads and I would often coach them on a Sunday morning in the winter when I was around. Sussex CCC had always had a couple of girls on its Academy so I guess I was more in tune than I appreciated. That summer, trying to navigate the first team through its worst injury crisis ever and trying to stay in Division 1, I did watch bits of the Women’s Ashes with Ellie. At the end of that summer when Clare Connor approached me about the possibility of me coming on board it was something I unexpectedly found myself intrigued by. The next thing I know I found myself being interviewed, offered the job and accepting it. I started in January leaving Sussex after 19 years and the men’s professional game for 30. It’s been different of course and of course, you get different challenges to what you would get in the men’s game but so far it has been hugely rewarding. The girls are brand new to being professional and one of the reasons they wanted an experienced men’s coach was to help them through this transition. Women’s sport has really exploded and is really growing quickly. The exposure we are getting increases every year. Last summer all our international games where on Sky with all the analysis that goes with it. The girls had had no preparation for this and have gone from playing in front of the proverbial two men and a dog, to playing at Chelmsford in front of 5000 people live on Sky. It’s obviously great if things are going well but when things are not as they were the previous summer in the Ashes, they were ill-prepared for all the written criticism and the Sky commentators demanding more from the now fully professional England team. My tenure started with a tour to South Africa at the end of January where I only met half the team for the first time. We did well over there although we were run close. On our return we were quickly off to the T20 World Cup where we lost in the semi-finals against the old enemy Australia. We knew things weren’t