Day 24: Coach Franks

Paul Franks is someone whose career I have followed since he made his Nottinghamshire. As someone who is from the same town as you, that becomes understandable. It would have been fantastic to see him play more than once for England. What cannot be denied is that he has been a tremendous servant at Notts.

To see him as the assistant coach for the county of my birth is reassuring. I know that he won’t be satisfied with that.

What helps coaches are there are opportunities to work all over the world. Like in so many occupations, the chance to work in different places with different people helps broaden your horizons, but you become better at your job if you are savvy.

As announced on Trentbridge.co.uk Franks will be coaching in the UAE with Team Abu Dhabi for a T20 competition. It gives him the chance to work with some world-class players, that is never a bad thing.

 Coaching is a difficult job. Players, only have to worry about their game; as a coach, there are many more people to care about; each with their worries, how they train best. To get the best out of a team of players is never easy.

Franks is an essential part of the Nottinghamshire team. It is well documented that Notts recruit players from further afield than Newark. It might be a fair assessment that there are not enough players coming through the academy, making the locals such as Franks on the coaching staff and Jake Ball and Luke Fletcher as senior players all the more important.

It would be fantastic to see Franks become head coach at Notts in the future.

Josh Davey is a cricketer I have always liked. A very watchable bowler who bowls a reliable line and length. I remember seeing Davey play international cricket before I saw him in county cricket.

During the 2015 World Cup, Davey was regularly Scotland’s best bowler. Figures of three for 40 against New Zealand ran the hosts close.

While Scotland failed to win a game at that World Cup, it would be outrageous if a team like Scotland could not qualify for the top competition in international cricket. As always, the biggest problem is growing the game around the world. That means that sometimes one of the big players isn’t going to qualify for the knock-out stages. Surely the best interests of the game are more important than advertising revenue.

Ireland will find it harder to qualify for the next World Cup as Afghanistan beat them with ease in their second ODI. Paul Stirling top-scored for Ireland with 128. Rahmat Shah with 103 not out and Hashmatullah Shahidi with 82 ensured that Afghanistan won by seven wickets.