Shahzad departs

While the departure of someone from the club that you support is never pleasant, that of Ajmal Shahzad, announced today, had an air of inevitability about it, certainly for me.

Regular readers will know that for some time now I have felt a 'disconnect' between the bowling coach and the bowlers. There had to be, because regardless of anecdotal 'evidence', the returns of those bowlers across formats were diminishing. There are some very good bowlers in our club, better than the collective returns of the past couple of summers have suggested.

Yes, there was international recognition for Pat Brown, Sam Conners and George Scrimshaw, but do the figures of those three suggest they have improved? The same goes for Harry Moore, who now needs someone to oversee his rehabilitation and return to full fitness. I am not sure how much he will have directly worked with Shahzad anyway, or whether his England call up and progress is due to natural talent, parental guidance and the Pathway coaches.

I had advocated a change and while claiming no responsibility, I am pleased that there will be one for 2026. For supporters to get behind 'the masterplan', accountability of the coaching setup had to be robust and the bowling unit has simply not functioned as it should do.

No one could complain about the returns of batters, nor the fine job being done by Ben Smith. Matches were being lost by poor bowling, tactics and players who seemed to have lost their collective erstwhile mojo. It is a difficult job, of course, especially when the bloke 22 yards away is trying to hit you to all corners. Yet there were times when the game plan wasn't working, others when there was no clear evidence of there being one in place.

There are plenty of excellent bowling coaches out there who will be very interested in the opportunity to work at Derbyshire. 

Why wouldn't they? Chappell, Moore, Haydon, Aitchison, Brown, Potts - not to mention Jake Green and Matt Stewart - is a fine collective of seamers to work with, even without considering Messrs Reece, Dal and Andersson. The young spinners, Morley and Hawkins, will fast track their progress with the right coach.

These are good - very good - cricketers who just need the right voice in their ear to get an extra ten per cent of value. 

There will no doubt be a recruitment process to get the right man to work across both the first team squad and the Pathway. If the bowling progresses as the batting has, we can expect further progress from Derbyshire in 2026 and beyond.

I wish Ajmal Shahzad the best in his future endeavours, but the time was absolutely right for a change of direction, whether or not he is leaving for a new challenge or was told 'the times they are a'changing'. Doing it now enables recruitment to take place and the new man to work with his new charges over the crucial winter months.

We will all watch developments with considerable interest...