Men's Cricket

Paul Farbrace: T20 Blast Preview

28 May 2024

Paul Farbrace: A Date for the Shackles to Come Off

With the T20 Vitality Blast starting this Friday, Sharks' Head Coach Paul Farbrace has given his thoughts ahead of what will be an exciting summer of sun, sea and sixes at The 1st Central County Ground. He talks about the shackles coming off for his players, the experience of newly appointed captain Tymal Mills and how his team will approach the competition.

Friday 31st May is a date ringed in the diaries of players, coaches, members and supporters alike.

It is the start of the T20 Blast, a date for the shackles to come off, and for the excitement and power of the game to truly be shown off.

We started our preparation at the start of October for this year’s Blast and spent a lot of time analyzing the stats and data from last season’s competition to truly understand what we needed to work on over the winter, and what areas we needed to address.

To win through to the knockout stage of the Blast, we need eight matches, and ideally nine to get a home quarter final tie. That is the priority, you plan to win the competition unless you get to knock out stage.

Last season we won six matches, but more importantly only won one at home, and that is the area we have focused hugely on.

To win five games away from Hove shows we have the skill and talent to win games, but only winning one at home meant we gave away the home advantage to the other teams.

Without giving too much away, we have worked hard on scoring all around the ground and not just relying on power hitting down the ground. We have looked at how we can access more scoring areas, what are the dimensions of the ground, what types of pitches we play on, and which players needed to upskill in certain areas.

This whole process has involved all the players, the coaching staff, the analysts, and an awful lot of data. We also have a lot of experience of T20 cricket from all around the world, with all our coaching staff having great experience and knowledge.

Luke Dunning, our Head Analyst, has put so much hard work into looking at all the stats he has gathered and simplified it for us coaches to be able to use with the players.

Luke not only analyses every ball we bowl, and every ball bowled in all our games, but he is constantly tracking trends and match situations across the world, and we are very lucky to have someone of his vast knowledge and experience to help shape our game plan for the coming summer.

The next bit is the selection of our own team, and I have taken full responsibility for last season, and said it took us a while to get the right team playing. Once we had the right balance to our team we made really good progress.

Australian Dan Hughes has won two T20 Big Bash tournaments for the Sydney Sixers

Dan Hughes joins us for this season’s campaign, and he is used to winning and has played a lot of T20 cricket in the Big Bash for Sydney Sixers. Dan will bring so much knowledge and experience, but also a very calm head to the tense situations that Blast cricket throws up.

Nathan McAndrew is back for a second season, and other Australian who had a brilliant Australian summer, leading wicket taker in the Sheffield Shield and a match winner for Sydney Thunder.

Jayden Seales, who has starred with the ball in the County Championship for us this summer, is available for the first three Blast matches.

Tymal Mills is our new captain and has worked incredibly hard all winter to put together game plans, work out the strategy for the team, working closely with the coaching staff and Luke Dunning to be as well prepared as we possibly can be for the start of the competition.

Tymal has so much experience of the T20 game and has won competitions all over the world, including the recently completed Pakistan Super League with Islamabad United and he played a leading role in the final.

We are all excited by the Blast, full houses at Hove, sunny evenings, lots of music and fun. Thank you for your continued support, I hope you enjoy watching the Sharks playing fun and exciting cricket this summer.

It is a great game for the whole family to be involved in, and even people who have never watched a game of cricket before, this is not just cricket, but a fantastic way to be together and be part of the Sussex Cricket family, and you are all most welcome to join the family and have some fun.

Thanks again for your amazing support, the players really do appreciate, and I hope they pay you back with exciting cricket.

Farby.