He’s Director of Cricket at Melbourne Stars. He does the specialist batting coaching too. This year, he’s looking after the data analysis relationship with CricViz. He is also a husband and a father. Trent Woodhill is a very busy man.
But he loves every minute of it.
Woodhill’s coaching history is exemplary; the back catalogue is littered with cricket’s finest batters. Also, Woodhill has a passion for data analytics in cricket and is happy to discuss it at length...despite the mountain of work to get through for this year’s BBL campaign.
Woodhill though is worried that Australian sport, in general, isn’t geared up for the future.
“It’s easy to burn yourself out," he says. "Because franchise cricket is so new, it’s hard to explain sometimes what it is you actually do and whereas you look at American sports and roles are well defined and the size of them are embraced, and then usually when they’re split up.
"It’s because the work’s gotten too big and they create another role. Whereas in Australian sport, franchises are new and also managed tight."
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Woodhill is concerned with how finite resources like money are distributed.
“The money lies with the players in Australian sport," he says. "So it’s hard to value add more coaches, to more skill sets, to more specialists, so you have to take another role.
"What ends up happening is a lot of your coaches end up burning themselves out because they’re forced to do a lot of things.”
The key, according to Woodhill, is high performance. The better the product available, the better it is for stakeholders such as fans, sponsors, administrators.
Producing exciting cricket performed at a high level will bring fans to the game which, in turn, generates revenues which can be appropriated more equitably.
Woodhill has been a keen advocate of The Hundred, the ECB’s controversial new tournament debuting next year in England and feels that the new format will go some way towards addressing some the issues.
For example, Woodhill believes that the new competition will “address the balance between bat and ball.”
Woodhill explained that The Hundred will “give the opportunity for bowlers to come into the contest and being able to bowl ten balls in a row is a way of doing that.
"Or five from one end and then continuing to bowl will enable captains to exert pressure on batsman that we don’t see as much in T20 cricket.”
For the Stars’ BBL campaign this year, Woodhill is confident that the squad is set to make another challenge and better last season. Having played an integral part in the makeup of the Stars means that Woodhill is heavily invested in the success of the team.
The line-up suggests the squad has strength in depth and can cope with international call-ups to deliver over the season.
“I think the relationship between David Hussey and Glenn Maxwell is already a good one, and I think that will be pivotal for us continually to grow as a team," says Woodhill.
"Adding new pieces in Hilton Cartwright, Clint Hinchcliffe and Nathan Coulter-Nile, plus Dale Steyn as well, we’ve strengthened our athleticism and also our bowling.”
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