Smith and Warner’s batting whisperer joins national team

Trent Woodhill is a bat whisperer who has helped David Warner, Steve Smith and AB de Villiers and now he is an assistant to Justin Langer.

19/8/20: Australian cricket team batting coach Trent Woodhill. John Feder/The Australian

The appointment of a vegan former fast bowler uncomfortable with leather cricket balls as head coach of South Australia may not have been the most surprising announcement of the week.

On Wednesday Jason Dizzy Gillespie announced he would cut short his English county contract to accept a job with the underperforming Redbacks side.

Celebrated in both hemispheres for his character and coaching, Gillespie is a man of principle. He won’t eat meat or dairy products, wears second-hand clothes and while it is not an issue for him he would be happier if balls weren’t made of leather.

It was, however, the trial appointment on Monday of the little-known-outside-cricket-circles Trent Woodhill as one of the coaches for Australia’s forthcoming tour of the UK which proved more fascinating.

Watch every ball of the England v Pakistan Test Series Live & On-Demand on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your free trial now & start streaming instantly >

Woodhill is making his way from cricket’s steppes to its centre.

There were whispers and questions asked when he was seen in the nets with the Australian squad before the New Zealand one-dayers in March. Early this month he left his job as Melbourne Stars list manager to take on a role as the BBL’s first “global player acquisition” manager.

This week he was announced as a support coach to Justin Langer on the UK tour — primarily to assist with the team’s fielding.

Last year he could be found in the offices of England cricket performing a role as High Performance Consultant for The Hundred competition. Cricinfo recently described him as a “cricketing radical”, but Woodhill maintains he is “not as left-field as some would make me out”.

Before these appointments Woodhill was known around the traps as a private batting coach. He is the man David Warner, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell and AB de Villiers have turned to at one time or another.

Gifted with an eye and mind that he claims almost breaks action down into freeze-frames, he has an ability to reassure and re-establish players.

He’s barely spoken with Smith in the past few years. The fomer Test captain is so self-reliant now the extent of their conversations involve the batsman occasionally asking if the coach sees anything of concern in his game. There never is.

Woodhill fiercely protected Smith’s unorthodox style from the time he met him as a 15-year-old.

The relationship with Warner is closer, the opening checking in for a fine-tune in the nets occasionally and keeping contact regularly via the phone. The left-hander struggled desperately in England but Woodhill saw no reason for panic. A hit in the nets on return confirmed the mechanics were good. A triple Test century followed.

Warner says Woodhill understands his game, can identify what is right with it and what’s going wrong and that he is honest. It was the coach who got him out of an early rough patch in Test cricket by telling him he was at his best when he set up to score runs, not to defend.

“The best way to describe my role as a private batting coach is I am your driving range coach in golf, not your caddie,” he told The Australian. “I get you to use every club in your bag and get you to understand which clubs aren’t working at a particular time or which clubs you should never play. I don’t travel with you. It’s the job of the senior coach and assistants to be the caddies and to strategise on match day.

“I set it up so players become their own coaches, but I am their mirror, or window to their soul if you like, so that they are doing everything biomechanically or technically to give them every chance of success.”

Woodhill describes himself as an “average first class cricketer”. He completed a sports science degree while playing for Sutherland but got the coaching bug one day when he helped out Graeme Rummans in the nets during a game against Bankstown.

The opposition batsman was struggling with his cut shot before the break but after the tune-up came back and hit two sixes over point. Woodhill’s teammates were furious but he got a kick from the experience and saw an opening for himself.

He says every player has a sweet spot — a position they are in where they hit the ball best — although he doesn’t use that term. Forget footwork or orthodoxy, he counsels, find that instinctive place and pursue it. He says that he can think of only one golfer who won a major after re-engineering their swing and cricketers should learn from that.

“Players are all different, they are not front foot or back foot, forward or back, left-handed or right-handed,” he said.