Adams reaches end of the road

Chris Adams guided Sussex to three championship titles as captain

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Chris Adams has had time to reflect on his stint as Sussex captain having led the side to three championship titles and a handful of one-day trophies.

Adams joined Sussex in 1997 from Derbyshire and was appointed as captain for that following season. Eleven years later he decided the time was right to pass on the armband.

Three weeks after stepping down, he spoke to ecb.co.uk about what it meant to be in charge of Sussex.

“I went into the job without any captaincy experience at all,” he said. “I based my captaincy on what I’d seen from other captains that I’d played under.

“I tried to take their best attributes and also tried to recognise some of the the things that they had done that I didn’t like as a player.

“It was a good starting point to eliminate those that I didn’t like and copy those that I did like.”

Adams was just 27 when he was made skipper of the Sussex side, meaning most of the best years of his career were spent leading the side. He was the longest-serving county captain in recent memory.

“I’ve grown immeasurably over that period of time,” he confirmed. “And what a journey it has been.

“I’m just very pleased to have got where I got to, and to do 11 years as an entity in its own right is an incredible feat.

“To actually reach the end and end it on my terms is a great privilege indeed. So many tenures as captain or coach or any position end in tears or on a bad note.”

Sussex would surely have wanted Adams to continue his stint for as long as he wanted as he oversaw the most successful time in the club’s long history.

“I guess winning the championship in 2003 would be the pinnacle,” Adams said. “When I arrived here on the south coast in the winter of 1997 one of the underlying factors was that I knew there was something the club had never done before, which was win the championship.

Sussex did the double in 2006, winning the C&G Trophy and the championship © Getty Images

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“That was quite a big draw for me. That was a mountain worth climbing. To actually do it in 2003 was incredible.”

However, Adams’ own memories will be dominated by the camraderie and general atmosphere of goodwill at the club.

“When I look back it won’t necessarily be the trophies that I remember, but how we got the trophies and some of the games we played in and the experience we went through,” he said.

“Peter Moores once said to me it is not where you end up that counts, it is the journey on the way and everything that you experience on that path. He is absolutely right.”

Adams and Moores set the wheels in motion for Sussex’s successes in the last decade and the former is delighted with the legacy he is leaving.

“We would now classify ourselves as an elite high performance centre,” he said. “I think the challenge now is to take that off the field.

“Up until three to five years ago we were a little club with a big mentality. It is now important to keep that mentality without endangering what we have here.

“It is a special little place on the south coast and we still need to encapsulate the charm and integrity. In the current economy that is an incredible challenge.”

That challenge will now fall to Mark Robinson and new captain Michael Yardy, for whom Adams has plenty of advice.

“First and foremost, he will bring himself to the role,” Adams said. “He is not the finished article as a player. You need to be very settled as a cricketer and comfortable in your own game. It needs to take care of itself.

“The vast majority of his time will be spent inspiring and motivating others. He will grow into the job.

“When I started the club was not as spectacular as it is now, but I was afforded patience and time.

“He needs that too.”