By JMB
March 17 2007

The Corridor of Uncertainty speak to Yorkshire's new Director of Cricket Operations, Ian Dews. He's the quiet man of the new management setup at Yorksire County Cricket Club and someone we've not heard a lot from - until now...

I started by passing on my congratulations on Ian’s recent appointment and telling him that the feedback through the website had been very positive.

 

Yeah, I saw one or two comments and that was nice.

 

You’ve obviously worked hard and have had success at the Academy and have been rewarded for that, which is a good message to give to the players – if you work hard you get your just rewards.

 

Well that’s right but it’s through a lot of what they’ve done as well and what they have put in to help me through.

 

When I interviewed Adam Lyth recently he said that you were a good bloke, deserved it and he wished you all the best.

 

That was what came over on Thursday when the players were told. Most of the players came up and wished me all the best and that was really a big plus for me. A lot of it was that they knew they were getting someone they knew they were going to be able to work with and not get in someone they didn’t know.

 

You are not a high profile person – people with big names often jump over the lesser known people for jobs like this.

 

Exactly, and that was probably why I was never touted as being in contention. It was the only job that didn’t break before it was announced. I think club’s often look for a big name for the experience they’ve gone through. I’ve tried to use my experiences, but I’m always straight upfront with the players and say that I’ve not played first class cricket and we have coaches that have. I’ve been out in the real world as well. I’ve got up at 4.30 in the morning and I know how lucky I am to be in this sort of role. I try to get them to realise that as well, the ‘you don’t know how lucky you are' type thing.

 

There are plenty of people on my side of the boundary rope that would give their right arm for the opportunity to play for Yorkshire.

 

Exactly and I just say to the guys when they first start on the Academy, don’t go away in September after being released saying ‘if only’, take every opportunity you’ve got and ask for help. We’re getting away from the idea that asking for help and advice is a weakness. If you go up and say ‘I’m, not sure about this, it doesn’t feel right’ it’s not weak, it’s about learning.

 

All of the players I've interviewed say you are a thoroughly decent bloke - can you be nasty when required?

 

I don’t think nasty is the right word. I lay down with guy’s right at the start that I have boundaries and I set down the ground rules and someone will break them, that will happen and they will be told about it. I’ll tell them once and it will be put to the back of our minds as everybody makes a mistake, but after that don’t do it again. I’ll give a second chance, but I’m not into thirds and fourths and they know the boundaries and hopefully they don’t push it. Someone said “can you deliver the bollocking to somebody” and I said you’ve got to be their boss to bullock them. It’s great to be called a decent guy and if they’re decent with me I’ll be decent with them, if not then they’ll start and see a different side. One or two people have copped the wrath, but not many and hopefully I won’t need to.

 

So you’ve not got Sir Alex Ferguson’s hairdryer?

 

They’ve seen that a time or to, but not to an individual. They’ve seen it once or twice and I think the less you do it the more impact it has. They saw it last year up at Durham and the Academy lads still say they were quaking when it happened. Some of them weren’t expecting it because they’d never seen it before, but it worked and it went the right way.

 

Now your name is known a bit more will the new job change you?

 

No I don’t think I’ll change. There are plenty of people who will pull me down and put my feet on the ground, but hopefully they won’t need to. I’ll still be the same me going around asking for help and advice and offering it in return and I think if you do that it’s important. I always remember listening to Anthony McGrath talk to the Academy. We’ve got a fantastic relationship with our senior players and I think that is something other counties dream of. Our guy from the ECB can’t believe that we can do it. Anthony said, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to be nice.” I think if the lads remember that. Yeah, people are going to have a go. There will be people out there criticising me getting the job and that’s their opinion. Some people won’t agree with what the club have done - hopefully most do and hopefully I can prove those others wrong. It won’t change me.

 

You played at York as a batsman.

 

I was captain at York for ten years and played there for twelve. I played a little bit in the Central Yorkshire League and also spent a season in Australia, which was probably the best thing I ever did and I wish that I’d done it three or four years earlier than I did. I was mainly a batsman, but I ended up being a batsman/off-spinner, which was on the back of our off-spinner retiring and as nobody did it I took the ball as captain and got away with a bit. My claim to fame, and I keep reminding Kevin, was I played against him in an inter-League game and he was one of my scalps (laughs).

 

You had the record for the most consecutive hundreds?

 

I believe it is joint now with Richard Blakey. I made three consecutive hundreds and in the time leading up to that I probably made four consecutive ducks, but they don’t put that down. I honestly didn’t know where my next run was coming from. I got dropped on nought in the next game, got a hundred in that and then went on to get three in a row. I do put that over to the young players as well, something will click and your luck will change.

 

A questioner has asked, ‘Ian, you've been there and done the job, you know the set up, you know the people in Yorkshire you will be dealing with - that plus your track record - could the club have given the job to anyone else?’

 

Well yes they could have given it to somebody else. I think it’s been made public that there were quite a lot of applicants and they will have looked at those. I do realise how lucky I am and they would have had a right to give it to someone else. I’m very pleased and see it as a reward for the work I’ve done, but it’s also the work that a lot of the young lads have put in. I’ve maybe helped them get out what they want, but they’ve put hard work in, I’ve put hard work in and I’ve been rewarded. Hopefully a lot of those young players will be rewarded. Some of them have so far and there’s on or two creeping up who I hope certainly will.

 

If you look at last year in the Academy we had James Lee, Adil Rashid and Adam Lyth. I remember going through to Scarborough when Adil was playing and I set there and I was probably more nervous as him, because David Byas had asked me if I thought he could handle it and I’d said that I was sure he would. He hadn’t bowled brilliantly in his first couple of over and then just before lunch he got a wicket and went on and bowled magnificently. It was good to be there, just speaking to Adil and trying to help him at that stage. Of course Adam got his opportunity which was great.

 

Passing the message on to James Lee was probably one of the highlights of what I’ve done so far. I got a call off David, he was going down to Derby and said that they’d got an injury and he wanted James Lee to go. He was waiting to bowl in a net session and I went up to him and said that he should go home, get his kit and go down to Derby as he could be playing that night. Well, the colour just drained from him. He thought I was winding him up. He went off and didn’t let us down and ended up playing at Lancashire.

 

When I started with the Academy part-time with Steve and Arnie, at that stage, we had people like Brezzie and Laws in there and to see Brezzie do well – even if one day when he wasn’t bowling that well, even if I said something that gets him that extra 1%, it’s rewarding to see them go on. You think of them when they were down and how you tried to help them and when they are at the top of their game you continue to help them.

 

How disappointed would you have been not to get the job?

 

It would have been disappointing, but I’d have still realised how lucky I am to work with such talented players. It’s a dream. I’ve sat on the other side of the fence. I’ve not been in pro sport all of my working life and I’ve had what some people call a ‘proper job’. I was always assured that my Academy position was safe throughout all of the changes. If I hadn’t got it I would have got on and continued doing what I’m doing and supported Martyn and whoever else it was.

 

You put an application in for the job?

 

I wasn’t sure what the job entailed. When I saw the advert I spoke to Stewart and said should I apply for this and he just said that I should register my interest so I did. I spoke to him before I went out to South Africa and then I found out that they wanted me to do it which is great.

 

Was it a nervous wait to find out if you’d got the job?

 

It was a little bit because once I’d had a chat with Stewart, which I suppose was the interview, I then started to get a little bit excited thinking that’s a role I could really get my teeth into and enjoy. I also was thinking that what I was already doing was a fantastic job so if it happened it happened and I was in a great place to worry about it at the time, out in South Africa with the kids playing cricket.

 

What would you say is the biggest challenge you face in your new role?

 

I think the new stuff such as working with the ECB and ECB committees and reporting back on all the rule changes and things like that, portraying the club’s point of view to the ECB is a new area and something I can get my teeth into and it will be a challenge. Also I’ve worked closely with the Yorkshire Cricket Board (YCB) so I’m quite confident  that I’ve got enough of a rapport with them that we can make something positive happen.

 

What is the breakdown of responsibility between yourself and Martyn Moxon?

 

Martyn is in charge of the professional staff down to the Junior Pros which is basically the 1^st and 2^nd Teams. I will run and oversee the running of the Academy, through schools and age group representatives right down to the Under-11’s and also liaising with the leagues to see if there are players that might have slipped through the net. I want to get the leagues feeling part of it because a strong league structure gives strong cricket for our players and that will give us better players in the end.

 

So your goal is to produce talent from these areas and feed them into the Academy and then through into the professional setup?

 

Yes, to spot the talent that’s out there. We take the cream of the talent and bring it to the club and we want the coaches to be confident enough to pass that cream over and then my aim is to pass them on to Martyn, Kevin, Steve and Darren ready to go to the next level.

 

And after you’ve taken the cream are you still interested in what you leave behind, or is that not your role?

 

It’s not really. It will be to a certain extent as it’s okay taking the cream off, but we need a strong league structure in place so that when our guys go back into the league they play against better teams and better players and that is good for the game.

 

And the young future cream come in and plays harder cricket too.

 

Exactly, it lifts the standard right the way up. If the youngsters that we’re developing who don’t make it are of a better standard, the next level of youngsters is going to have to be better and better and it’s a snowball effect

 

Will you liaise with Martyn and Darren regarding recommending certain players to be given a chance in the 1^st Team?

 

Yeah, feed them the information that they need as I did with David last year - he needed a spinner and he came and he asked if Adil could do the job. In the game he played at Scarborough he went in as a batsman who could bowl some overs of spin. He’d got runs everywhere and it was a case that he could fill that slot nicely and if he needs a few overs they are there. He ended up finishing the season as a spinner who made a fifty and hopefully that will continue.

 

Does anything worry you bout the job ahead?

 

No, there are a lot of good people around here who if there are worries will help me and I will turn to. People have done it before me and hopefully I’ve got a good enough relationship with enough people that I can turn round and ask for help and advice and I’ll get it. Steve and Kevin have always been supportive on that and so were Dave and Richard Blakey when they were here. It was the same at the Cricket Board when I started, there were a lot of good people that helped me. I’m not too proud to ask for help if need be.

Yorkshire has had an Academy now for a long time and it has produced some really good players, but has it been less productive than it could be in the past? There have been examples in the past of players who have been talked up and then either disappeared, had a taste of 1^st Team action and failed or who have gone elsewhere. Has that changed now?

 

I don’t think that will ever change to be honest. I think the Academy has been successful. We are in the middle of doing an Academy brochure and we’ve listed all of the players who have been involved with the Academy that have gone on and played either international cricket, first class cricket for Yorkshire or first class cricket at other counties. There are a few that have gone to other counties and a few that went to other counties after playing for Yorkshire, but when you think about it we can only turn eleven out. There are some very hard decisions – it’s a dreadful week when you have got to let a player go and I’ve done it now on three occasions. At times you often have to let a player go because there isn’t a way through for him. When you had Gough, Silverwood, Hoggard, White, Sidebottom, seam bowlers were coming out of our ears and that’s when Alex Wharf went. If he’d stayed at Yorkshire he would have probably stagnated in the 2^nd Team and wouldn’t have been able to continue to develop. You have to make a decision on a player and you try and keep the best one you have there and at times you are actually doing the player a favour because you are giving him the opportunity to go somewhere else and further his career.

 

That is going to happen because in Yorkshire we have such a lot of talent coming through. We play the biggest percentage of cricket in the country, we have the biggest number of juniors so we are going to have a lot of players and we can’t give a career to every single good player. Our aim is to try and pick the best. At the time when people like Gareth Batty moved on it was probably a choice between Batty and Richard Dawson for that opportunity. You probably wouldn’t know whether they made the right choice or not because they both played for England. The challenge of moving on just might make someone a stronger person away from the comfort zone.

 

For me the key is how many players have we not had in our system that have gone on to play somewhere else. Those are the ones. There are not may now. There were some before the Academy was formed – Glen Chapple and people like that. With the structure that is in place now then that will hopefully be fewer than before. If we have had the player and let them go then a decision has been made. If we’ve not had them then we’ve missed them.

 

How do we balance not playing youngsters too early in the 1^st Team with not letting some of them getting fed up with 2^nd Team or Academy cricket?

 

It is a fine line and I think if you throw a player in and leave him in there for too long then that’s a dangerous situation. The situation with James Lee is he has been in and seen the level he needs to get to and is striving now to move forward. With Adil he was thrown in at the deep end, he was a great success and I think it will be more difficult for him this year. There may be a case where he’ll go down to the 2^nd Team to learn again and then go back and that’s now over to Martyn and Darren and their judgement. I remember listening to Darren talk about how he got frustrated as a youngster when after doing well in the 1^st Team and then he’d be back in the 2nds. When he looks back it was probably the best thing – it kept him level and going the right way.

 

Chris Taylor had done really well in the 2^nd Team, but at the time he had not had the opportunity because of the players we had in the side. He was at the end of a contract, has to make a decision on whether he’s happy to continue where he is. I think it was Chris’ decision and Derby had come in and offered him the chance to play regular 1^st Team cricket and he is a fine player and needed to be playing that. There were no guarantees with us and he was given a guarantee there and I always say good luck to the players and I hope they go on and do it and just miss out occasionally when they play against us.

 

Do supporters (and coaches) get carried away when the likes of Rashid come off in the firsts and then expect the same should happen to the likes of Lyth?

 

I think it can do. I don’t think the coaches here do. With Adil the hard work starts now because he will get targeted by other clubs and he’ll find it hard. I don’t think we get carried away, but I keep reading that Rashid will do this and Rashid will do that and I hope he does. I hope supporters don’t expect too much because the worst thing that can happen to players that have a good start is that people target them and work them out and if they get knocked too much it is a long way back for the player to get his game back on course. If he gets knocked by people saying he is a flash in the pan then that makes it harder. He is a good cricketer and they need the opportunity to learn the game.

 

I suppose there is a lot of psychology involved in all this – a young lad who has performed at all age levels suddenly gets to the top end of the spectrum and he’s the same as everyone else. If the performances dry up it’s probably the first time in their lives when they’ve experienced failure isn’t it?

 

That’s right and if that does happen to any of them they don’t need the expectation of the supporters who want them to do well. I spoke to Ian Salisbury who was on a Level 4 coaching course with me and he said look at what England did to him and Chris Schofield, let’s hope they don’t do it to Adil. There is a fear as they’ve taken him on an A Tour and I just hope they don’t thrust him into the limelight too soon.

 

I saw some people suggesting in the media that Adil should have been on this winter’s Ashes Tour.

 

If you look at Mark Lawson, the same thing was said about him three years ago and then he had a little bit of a downturn and now he’s coming back. He’s a stronger player now than he ever was and it maybe that the wheel turns this year and it might be Mark who comes to the fore as a leg-spinner as he’s worked hard, gone away, added to his game and come back again. It could be that Adil suddenly starts stacking up runs and then people will think of him as a batsman.

 

How strong are the Yorkshire youngsters?

 

I think the thing that confirms that we’ve got a strong crop is that for the last two years we’ve won the Under-17 Championship, but in the first year we won it with lads under 16 plus Adil and Adam Lyth. Last year we won it with young lads again as the likes of Greg Wood, James Lee and Ben Sanderson had all stepped up to 2^nd XI cricket. We’ve a crop of youngsters that have shown they are the best in the country at their age group so we have got an exciting crop. If I had done this interview this time last year I probably wouldn’t have put Adil at the top of the list and I’d have been proved wrong so I wouldn’t like to single somebody out because there will be somebody who will suddenly kick on and it will be their summer.

 

And finally a question from a worried parent - Can Ian come and teach my son to straighten up his back lift when batting so he does not bring his bat down from gully! What tips can he give to help him with this?

 

There are a few possible reasons, but usually with youngsters that fault is due to the bat being too heavy and it means they have to use too much bottom hand to lift it. The best test to see if that is why the fault occurs is to get the player to hold out his bat horizontally in front of him using just the top hand – if he gets the shakes in his arm then the bat is too heavy. Buying a big bat so that someone can grow into it is a false economy.