Patience Is Key For Paul's New Headingley Mission

Chris Stocks catches up with former Essex supremo Paul Grayson, who is relishing his return to cricket this summer as the new batting coach for his home county Yorkshire

- Chris Stocks

Paul Grayson feared hewould never return tofrontline cricketfollowing his departurefrom Essex, but more than three years on he has landed a dream job back at his home county Yorkshire.

The 47-year-old saw off stiff competition in the form of Jonathan Trott and Craig White to land the role of batting coach at Headingley.

Grayson, who has been coaching Durham University and the Yorkshire Diamonds women’s team since leaving Essex in September 2015, starts his new job on March 1.

And he can’t wait to get started.

“This is now a new chapter for me,” he said. “I’m pinching myself that I’m going back to my first county. I’m a lucky bloke. I’ve been involved in cricket all my life – it’s in the blood. It’s like all these football managers. You keep asking ‘why do you keep going back to managing?’ – because it’s in you.

“I was very happy at Durham, it’s a fantastic place to work, and doing the Yorkshire Diamonds job in the summer worked really well. But I just still feel if I don’t get back into first-class cricket now I never will and it’s a role I feel I can fulfil really well.”

Grayson, who made his first-class debut at Yorkshire in 1990 before moving to Essex six years later, spent eight years as head coach at Chelmsford following the end of his playing career. He also coached Essex’s Second XI for three years before that.

It was that experience that ultimately proved the deciding factor in him landing his new job at Yorkshire, with the county’s hierarchy keen for a young coaching set-up led by Andrew Gale, 35, to tap into Grayson’s experience if needed.