Bears chief explains reasons for club's big winter shake-up

A hectic close season at Edgbaston saw both first-team coach Mark Robinson and performance director Gavin Larsen depart.

James Thomas, who has no previous experience of working in cricket, will join from Manchester City to replace the latter in early June, while former skipper and assistant coach Ian Westwood has stepped into Robinson’s shoes.

The changes followed a high performance review held at the end of a disappointing 2024 season, in which the Bears won only one County Championship match and were knocked out of the T20 Blast at the quarter-final stage for the fourth consecutive year.

Former Kent head coach Matthew Walker has also joined as batting coach, replacing Tony Frost who has moved to become head of cricket operations, following the retirement of the long-serving Keith Cook.

Robinson’s departure in mid-February raised eyebrows, as it came more than two months after the review was completed and Larsen had left his role, with the head coach having since played a key part in several overseas signings.

But speaking at Edgbaston on Thursday, Cain defended both the timing and the decision to move on from the 58-year-old, who led the Bears to the County Championship in his first season at the helm in 2021.

He said: “There is never a good time to tell someone you are making a change. 

“We did the review, then Gavin left, which didn’t help because it knocked us back a couple of weeks. 

“Robbo and I were talking a lot through January about what we needed to do and then reached the conclusion it was probably right to move on. 

“There is never a good time. He is a good man, Robbo. He is a good coach. He got our County Championship win in 2021. We celebrate what he did for us and we look forward now.”

Asked about the delay between the conclusion of the review and Robinson’s removal, Cain replied: “It is just timing. We did the review and looked at where we were. It wasn’t just about last season. 

“You could argue we have underperformed for the last 20 years. If you look back to 2000, we have won the County Championship three times, been relegated once or twice. 

“We have won the Blast once and only got to Finals Day a few times. A club the size of Warwickshire should be doing better than that. 

“We thought it was the right time to take a step back and take a proper look at everything and think, how do we reset ourselves to get where we think Warwickshire should be across all three of the key competitions?”

Cain explained how the appointment of Thomas, who is currently head of performance services at Manchester City and previously worked for British Gymnastics, marked a necessary shift away from what he described as the “traditional” county cricket club model.

The chief executive believes the new man's experience of success at the top level of other sports, combined with the cricket knowledge of the club's existing coaching staff, can create a "powerful" mix.  

Crucially, Thomas' remit will also include the Bears new professional women’s team, which launches this summer, along with the Birmingham Phoenix franchise which is also now under the club’s control.

Cain said: “We are going through one of the biggest periods of change cricket has ever faced.

“This club was founded in 1882 and since then has had one men’s professional team.

“Over the next 12 months we are going to have a women’s professional team and also a Birmingham Phoenix men’s and women’s team.

“The traditional model which has served us well for nearly 150 years and been focused on one professional men’s team, won’t work across four teams.”

Larsen stepped down from his role after two years with the club in November and returned to his native New Zealand for personal reasons.

Cain said: “Gavin was a dyed-in-the-wool cricketer, who was perhaps more akin to the old fashioned model, where it was an old cricketer which sat on the shoulder of the head coach and helped the men’s first-team. 

“It is a much more expansive job now, not just with how Warwickshire is changing with four teams but how the world of cricket is changing. 

“You need performance directors now who have a very different mindset to the traditional performance director, or director of cricket.

“James is coming from a world class sports environment. He knows what it takes to develop athletes who can succeed in high pressure moments, he understands what it means to develop some of the worlds best teams. 

“If you take what James has got and add what we have, with the Bears and knowledge of cricket, that is hopefully quite a powerful mix.”