Gillespie to leave Yorkshire at end of season

Yorkshire head coach Jason Gillespie will leave the English county to return to Australia at the end of the season.

Gillespie has led Yorkshire to promotion to the First Division and successive County Championship titles during a successful five-year spell at Headingley.

The 41-year-old’s achievements in England saw him linked with a coaching job in the Australian national team, but he decided to stay with Yorkshire.

However, Sydney-born Gillespie, who has suffered just five defeats in 76 Championship matches, will shortly return home to be with his family in Australia.

“Yorkshire County Cricket Club can confirm that Jason Gillespie will leave his position as 1st XI coach at the end of the 2016 season,” a Yorkshire statement said on Monday.

“Jason feels the close season is an appropriate time to part company.

“The club would like to place on record its thanks to Jason, who led Yorkshire from the second division to consecutive Championship titles since his appointment in November 2011.”

Gillespie’s wife Anna and four children returned to Australia recently and he is unlikely to be short of job offers back home.

The former Australia pace bowler, who took 259 wickets in 71 Tests, also coaches the Adelaide Strikers in his country’s Big Bash Twenty20 competition.

Yorkshire, semi-finalists in both limited-overs competitions this season, are second in the County Championship and face a potential title decider against leaders Middlesex at Lord’s in Gillespie’s final match in charge, starting on September 20.

“The focus will now be very much on the remaining four County Championship fixtures, beginning with Wednesday’s trip to the Ageas Bowl to face Hampshire, and on securing the first Championship treble seen at Headingley since the 1960s,” the Yorkshire statement added.

“Director of Cricket Martyn Moxon will not begin the search for a new 1st XI coach until the end of the current season and the club will provide further updates when the time is appropriate.”