Mark Robinson: Warwickshire appointment the beginning of “something special”

The 54-year old World Cup winner coached Sussex to seven trophies between 2005 and 2015 and replaces Jim Troughton as Warwickshire's first team coach

Mark Robinson is excited to have a young squad at his disposal after being unveiled as Warwickshire’s new first team coach on Friday.

The 54-year old, who previously coached Sussex to seven trophies between 2005 and 2015 and lifted the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup with England in 2017, replaces Jim Troughton who left at the end of the 2020 season.

The county have gone through a rough period since winning the County Championship in 2012, suffering relegation in 2017 and losing club legends Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell to retirement. However, Robinson is confident that the transition from one era to the next is nearly over.

"The club has been in a transitional period and we’re just coming to the end of that now," he said. "It’s a young team and an exiting team. It’s the beginning of something and that’s always a really good thing to be a part of as a coach, when you start something which will hopefully become something special.

"That transitional bit is always difficult because you’ve got club legends leaving and they take away a wealth of experience, as well as their ability.  But it’s about putting the building blocks in place for sustained success.

^{Mark Robinson (centre) celebrates after winning the Cricket World Cup with England in 2017}

"It’s a young team and there’s some really highly thought of players. Warwickshire have a great reputation for producing good players and they just need a little more experience and exposure."

During his decade-long tenure at Sussex, during which he oversaw the most successful period in the county’s history, Robinson developed a rivalry with Warwickshire and Ashley Giles. However, he hopes to use Giles’ Warwickshire as inspiration for his own success.

Commenting on the rivalry, Robinson said: "There are different rivalries at different times, usually when competing for a prize. Warwickshire kept beating us [Sussex] and I tried everything as a superstitious coach to get a win at Edgbaston!

"We’ve got to get Warwickshire back to being that very resilient team which is my experience [of them]. Whenever you came to Edgbaston, it was a hard place to play. Players always did the hard yards and they’d always come back at you.

"They’ve always had that ability to show resilience and that fight and depth of order. It’s an exciting time to get back into county cricket and lead this squad forward."

Looking back on his coaching career, Robinson has had an immediate impact in all of his roles. Within his first two years at both Sussex and England he’d captured silverware, and he is determined to bring this winning mentality back to Warwickshire.

"We all start equal at the beginning of the season and your goals are to win matches, win tournaments and win leagues," Robinson said. "Sometimes you’re disappointed, sometimes you come up short but you’ve got to start with that ambition and it’s no different here.

"In my time at Sussex, if we didn’t win something we were getting to quarter-finals and semi-finals. We were used to competing and winning, but we were also relegated twice. We experienced a lot, but the ambition is to win and rectify losing positions."

𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 | 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗖𝘂𝗽 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘀 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝘄𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵.

📝 https://t.co/mKa8G8Ul18

🐻#YouBears pic.twitter.com/fn72rLglHT

— Warwickshire CCC 🏏 (@WarwickshireCCC) January 22, 2021

It’s this mentality which makes Robinson the perfect fit for Warwickshire’s chief executive, Stuart Cain, and director of cricket, Paul Farbrace.

"[Mark] finishes off the jigsaw puzzle in terms of our high quality coaching team put together by Paul," Cain said. "He’s a winner at county level and internationally so it shows our ambition."

"It’s great to hear Mark talking about winning," Farbrace added. "I don’t like transition. I want to talk about us as a sporting team winning and that’s what we should be judged on. Having someone with a winning mentality and fresh eyes coming in is really important for us.

"We’ve got great people, a very keen and enthusiastic group of players who want to achieve and a lot of players on the fringe of England honours. We don’t want to talk about being competitive or challenging, we want to be winning trophies and that’s the bottom line."

Commenting on the county’s ambitions for the season, Farbrace concluded: "There are three things I’d like us to be judged on: developing our own players, developing players to play for England and winning trophies.

"We nearly had three players in this Test match [Chris Woakes, Olly Stone and Dom Sibley] and Danny Briggs is doing well in Big Bash. It’s really important for us and our younger players.

"[Robert] Yates and [Dan] Mousley, without putting pressure on them, we’re talking about what they can do to cement their place with us and get into England Lions and that’s where people like Bresnan and Briggs can help motivate our boys for greater honours."