Photo Credit: Cricket Hong Kong
Cricket Hong Kong, China has completed the restructuring process of the High Performance Team, with dedicated coaches now supporting the Hong Kong Men’s, Women’s and Youth Teams.
Simon Willis, who was appointed earlier in the year, will serve as the Men’s Head Coach. He will be joined by new Women’s Head Coach Andy Cottam, while former High Performance General Manager Mark Farmer will step into the role of Youth Pathway Coach. Chris Pickett will expand his current role as Team Analyst predominantly for the Men’s Squad to Head of Performance Analysis across all representative teams.
Simon brings with him a wealth of experience in professional cricket environments in England and Sri Lanka respectively. He has held a number of High Performance coaching and management roles with Kent, the England and Wales Cricket Board and most recently Sri Lanka Cricket as their High Performance Manager!
Andy Cottam comes to Hong Kong from Bangladesh, where he was High Performance Manager at BKSP, the national sports institute of the country. A former England U19 and First Class Cricketer, He has also served as national coach of Indonesia’s men’s and women’s teams, and has experience of coaching in England and Australia.
Mark Farmer will be moving from the role of High Performance General Manager into role of the Youth Pathway Coach. This position bridges the gap between Club Cricket and Domestic Cricket, heading into elite level and International Cricket. The job will require overseeing the Caravel Foundation Pathway Program, which includes the U16 and U13 All Star Series, as well as overseeing the Coach Pathway Programs.
Chris Pickett has been re-appointed into an expanded role as Head of Performance Analysis, creating a set up that provides extensive Analytics across all of Hong Kong’s representative teams, drawing on his knowledge of local players and decades of experience in high performance coaching both in England First Class Cricket set up and here in Hong Kong.
The HP team will also be supported by Men’s Assistant Coach Jawaid Iqbal and Women’s Assistant and Pathway Coach, Ghulam Saqlain.
Burji Shroff, Chairperson of Cricket Hong Kong China said, “We are pleased to have had several high quality candidates applying for the various High Performance roles during our restructuring process in the last few months. I would like to thank all the applicants, and congratulate the appointed coaches.”
“We have had great success in the last few year with our Men’s and Women’s teams, but we must also look ahead. With Asian Games, World Cup Qualification and Asia Cup Qualification available for both the Men’s and Women’s teams, as well as increasing busy calendar, it was time for us to introduce new resources into our coaching team. I would like to thank Mark Farmer for the tremendous success he has had in the role of the General Manager High Performance, and am sure he will bring even greater success in the Youth Pathway Role. I also would like to thank Chris Pickett for bringing so much success to the Women’s Squad, and look forward to seeing his continued support towards our HK Teams. Finally, I would like to thank our Sponsors especially Caraval Foundation for enabling us to have the resources available to engage such high quality coaches.” added Burji Shroff.
