Adelaide Cricket Club seeking new coach after Shaun Seigert steps down due to Joe Root academy commitments

Shaun Seigert has stepped down as Adelaide Cricket Club’s senior coach due to commitments with Joe Root’s academy and family reasons.

England captain Joe Root, who has appointed outgoing Adelaide Cricket Club coach Shaun Seigert to be his academy’s high-performance director. Picture: Randy Brooks/AFP

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Shaun Seigert has stepped down as Adelaide Cricket Club’s senior coach due to commitments with Joe Root’s academy and family reasons.

Seigert guided the Buffalos for two summers, taking the club to sixth place in 2017/18 before steering it to its first grand final since 2005/06 this past season.

But late last year he joined England captain Root’s academy as high-performance director – a role requiring him to run an Australian-based training centre and overseas tours.

Seigert said the Buffalos players deserved to have a coach who would be on hand more than he now could.

“I just don’t think it’s fair on the players to not be able to fully commit to them and not being around all the time for them, and the second thing is for family,” said Seigert from India, where he was on an academy tour.

“Being around a lot during the winter and then not being around a lot during the summer, I don’t think that’s fair.”

Adelaide during last season’s grade cricket two-day grand final, which outgoing coach Shaun Seigert missed part of because he was on his way to a Joe Root academy launch. Picture: AAP/Brenton Edwards

Last month Seigert missed day two of the Buffalos’ grand final loss to Kensington because he was flying to London for Root’s launch at Lord’s of the academy’s online coaching app and learnt about Adelaide’s result during a layover in Doha, Qatar.

“It’s not like I could’ve done much but not being there when players are feeling pretty ordinary isn’t great,” Seigert said.

Seigert said he enjoyed his time in the role and was happy to stay at Adelaide as a mentor to the club’s emerging batsmen.

Buffalos cricket director Damian Patton said the club was in preliminary discussions about its coaching structure for next season and hoped to announce a successor in two to four weeks.

“We’re sniffing around a few blokes at the moment then obviously we have to meet with them and make a recommendation to the board,” Patton said.