Glamorgan Cricket: Alleyne hopes for 'seamless' link with Maynard

Glamorgan's new limited-overs coach Mark Alleyne says the split of coaching duties will get the best out of the club's players this season.

Matthew Maynard remains in charge of Championship cricket.

"It will give us both a chance to focus entirely on the skill-sets needed for the particular formats," said Alleyne of the arrangement.

David Lloyd will again captain the club in the Championship and T20 while Kiran Carlson leads in the One Day Cup.

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Australian duo Marnus Labuschagne and Michael Neser are due to arrive in time for the county's second four-day match, against Durham starting on Thursday, 20 April, but South Africa's Colin Ingram will provide batting experience in the opening game against Gloucestershire two weeks earlier.

Two heads better than one?

Glamorgan have had David Harrison in charge of the One-Day Cup for the last two seasons with Maynard away at the Hundred franchise competition, but the red-ball/white-ball split is novel in the county game.

"It's the million dollar question [how it works], but Glamorgan have made the decision to split the roles to offer the coaches a real chance of getting the best out of each group," former Gloucestershire and England all-rounder Alleyne told BBC Sport Wales.

"We [Alleyne and Maynard] had probably 20 years of playing against each other, a couple of winter tours, and we've come across each other as coaches. I would imagine the relationship to be quite a seamless affair."

Alleyne enjoyed plenty of limited-overs success as a player and coach at Gloucestershire, his recruitment by Glamorgan ending a trend of appointing from within the Sophia Gardens set-up.

So how will he change the T20 Blast approach after six seasons of Glamorgan missing out on the knock-out stages?

"It'll be subtle changes, they're not getting hammered every week, they're in the game, so we've got to increase that competition for longer key parts of the game," explained Alleyne.

"The squad are very capable of that and even without the overseas player influence it's a very talented group."

Maynard and Alleyne have already spent time together on Glamorgan's pre-season trip to Zimbabwe, even though Alleyne's signature had not been officially confirmed at that stage.

"I hugely respect Mark for everything he did at Gloucester, as a player, captain and coach, so it'll be nice to work with him this summer," said Maynard.

"It was great to have him in Zimbabwe, to spend time with the lads and to get to know how he wants to come in and do his thing, it's very important we're both clear on our roles."

David Lloyd scored 313 not out in a match last September, the second highest score in Glamorgan's history

Captains' views

The captaincy duties are split in the same way as last year, but differently from the coaching set-up, with club captain Lloyd in charge of four-day and T20 campaigns.

"Last year hurt us, being so close in the four day stuff [third in division two], but we can learn from what went wrong and what we need to do to go one better," said Lloyd.

"In the white ball, we've got the squad and players to be better, but it's just finding the structure for the team so we look forward to challenging.

"It's great to welcome Mark Alleyne to the club and hopefully he can add different methods or freshness, we're fortunate to have two very good coaches."

Carlson will lead the county's One Day Cup efforts for a third season, winning the trophy in 2021 before finishing with a 50 percent record the following year as match-winning displays by Sam Northeast and Tom Bevan came just too late in the campaign.

"I have massive belief in us as a team and we can go all the way again," said Carlson.

"Last year as a team we didn't play as well as we could have, there were flashes of brilliance individually but we only put in big performances as a team towards the end, so this year I'm hoping we can hit the ground running."

Dan Douthwaite is Glamorgan's only absentee in the Hundred franchise tournament, after his selection by Welsh Fire.

Ins and outs

Glamorgan will be without veteran Australian Michael Hogan, who has been their leading wicket-taker over the last decade but has joined Kent after the offer of coaching responsibilities.

Lukas Carey, Ruaidhri Smith, Tom Cullen, Joe Cooke and James Weighell have also left the first-team staff, while Kent seamer Harry Podmore and inexperienced Worcestershire all-rounder Zain ul-Hassan are the only senior recruits.

After a third near-miss in his promotion efforts in two spells at Glamorgan, Maynard hopes they can get over the line in 2023.

"Every time you play, as a player or coach, you try to improve two or three percent each year. If we can do that as a red-ball team, that'll put us in the right place going into the last two or three games and challenging," said Maynard.

"We're not going to fill Michael Hogan's boots, we've recruited Harry Podmore and Zain ul-Hassan from a bowling perspective but we have to change our plans collectively a little bit and everyone to step up a bit more from the past."

While Labuschagne's alternative, Ingram, is a key batter in his own right, Maynard says the club will consider how to replace Neser if the all-rounder gets an Ashes call for Australia in June.

"It'll be a collaboration of what do we need at this stage, do we want someone with a bit more T20 nous and maybe only available for a couple of Championship matches, there's work to do on that."