Moores era excites Cumbes

Jim Cumbes has confidence that Peter Moores and Mike Watkinson will prosper in a revamped set-up

Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes is relishing the start of a new chapter in the club’s history - after admitting recent events could not have been scripted.

Peter Moores was last week unveiled as Lancashire’s new head coach, the most high-profile position in a new management structure that has seen Mike Watkinson move upstairs to assume the role of director of cricket.

The appointment of Moores represented an unexpected boon for Lancashire, given that he was still in charge of the England side when the closing date for applications passed.

Moores parted company with England on January 7, but a phone call from Watkinson and a couple of interviews later, he finds himself in charge of the county he supported as a boy.

Cumbes is confident Moores and Watkinson, who coached the side from 2002 until the end of last season, can forge a successful working relationship.

“I think it will work very well because they both have a very similar philosophy on the game,” Cumbes told ecb.co.uk.

“Mike has come through the process of becoming a Level 4 coach, and Peter Moores is in the same boat. In that respect they’re probably on the same wavelength.

“Mike will have to step back from what he was doing and he knows that. He will have an involvement of maybe 20%, but at least it gives Peter Moores the opportunity to focus on the professional side of cricket at this club.”

Cumbes admitted he was surprised by how Lancashire’s search for a new coach panned out, but he could not hide his delight at appointing a man with a proven track record on the county circuit as well as experience at the highest level.

That Moores supported Lancs as a youngster is merely "a bonus", according to Cumbes

Moores masterminded Sussex’s first County Championship title in 2003, before taking up the role of ECB National Academy director two years later and then England coach in 2007.

“Peter said he’s a fatalist, and in a way you couldn’t have written it down,” said Cumbes.

“When we took the decision to make Mike director of cricket, there wasn’t an obvious candidate to come in. Names were mentioned, but at the time Peter Moores wasn’t one of them.

“Then he suddenly loses the England job. We didn’t expect somebody who had been a supporter of the club, northern born, to actually come from nowhere to apply for the job.

“There were some top-class applicants, but Pete was head and shoulders above anyone else in a very tough school.”

While Moores arrived at Old Trafford boasting an impressive CV - he also won two one-day titles during his time in charge at Hove - of equal importance to some of the famously vocal Lancashire fans will be his north-west origins.

He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and attended trials at Lancashire as a youngster, factors which convinced rather than persuaded Cumbes that Moores was the right man for the job.

“People can be parochial here,” said Cumbes. “They want Lancashire players coming through into the first team, but they’ll also tell you they want a successful side as well.

“If anybody becomes a top coach at this club and they are Lancastrian-born, that is just another plus.

“What we wanted was the best person for the job. It just happened that the best person for the job is a local lad, which is fantastic - it’s a bonus.”