In 2021, former England wicket-keeper Sarah Taylor became the first female coach of a men’s franchise cricket team, Abu Dhabi, during the T10 League. She learnt a lot during her assignment as she worked with star West Indian batter Chris Gayle and English cricketers like Liam Livingstone and Phil Salt.
This year, the 32-year old will be seen as the assistant coach for the Manchester Originals in the Men’s Hundred competition. She will be working alongside the head coach and former Australian cricketer Simon Katich. Taylor believes that female coaches need to keep pushing themselves to attain roles in the men’s game.
She added, “We have to keep pushing. There are some brilliant women’s coaches out there and I hope they get recognized, in the male or female game. These roles are coming around now and any woman that gets offered an opportunity should take it with open arms. I’m extremely grateful to Manchester for giving me this opportunity.”
Taylor is the most successful wicket-keeper for England in women’s ODI and T20I cricket. She is the second-best in the world with respect to the number of dismissals in women’s ODI and T20I format. She has 136 dismissals in WODIs and 74 dismissals in WT20Is. She also kept wickets for England in Tests and has accounted for 17 dismissals. Apart from being one of the best wicket-keepers in the world of women’s cricket, she was a prolific run-scorer with more than 6500 international runs, including seven centuries and 36 half-centuries.
Last year, she joined the Sussex men’s senior side as a wicket-keeping coach. This year when she will be working with Manchester Originals men’s team, she will work closely with the team’s wicket-keepers Jos Butler and Phil Salt. At present, the Manchester Originals men’s squad has all four overseas slots available. Taylor feels that the West Indian all-rounder Rovman Powell, who plundered a delectable century in a T20I against England this year, would be a dream signing.
She added, “He’s an unbelievable player, so talented and he’s an intelligent cricketer as well, so he would be my number one choice.”
In the process of being the assistant coach with Manchester Originals men’s team, she could also get a chance to work alongside the women’s team. Ellie Threkeld is the wicket-keeper in the Manchester Originals women’s team.
Taylor said, “Ellie is extremely talented so it’ll be nice to see how she’s going and then a lot of them are friends so it’ll be a bit bizarre with Crossy, Ecclestone and [South Africa batter] Lizelle Lee.”
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