Kevin Shine is to leave the ECB after 14 years as Lead Fast Bowling Coach.
The former Hampshire, Middlesex and Somerset seamer joined the ECB in 2006, having served as Somerset Head Coach for five years and subsequently as the Academy Director in Taunton.
During his tenure at the ECB, Shine has overseen the development of pace bowling and fast bowling coaches across the country, helping to get the best out of the quicks who have gone on to win World Cups and Ashes series for England.
Shine pioneered the use of science and medicine in ECB coaching practices, working with the experts on hand at Loughborough University to improve performance and help mitigate the risk of injury that comes with such a physically demanding, repetitive action.
Ashley Giles, ECB Managing Director of England Men’s Cricket, said: “Kevin has been incredibly committed to improving fast bowlers across the country and his work in that area has been very important in supporting the success of the England Men's team over the last decade.
"He is incredibly passionate about what he does and we are very grateful for all the hard work and dedication he has put in across his 14 years at the ECB. He leaves with everyone's best wishes and gratitude."
Ahead of his departure, Shine looked back at his time in the post.
What first attracted you to the job?
My passion has always been fast bowling. Troy Cooley had taken me under his wing and encouraged me to get better as a coach and to understand my specialism better.
He encouraged me to look into the science behind it and into the art of coaching. We went to the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai to spend time with Dennis Lillee, which completely opened my eyes to fast bowling coaching.
I was then able to use all the amazing facilities and people at Loughborough University to not just understand our players to lessen injuries, but also to improve performance. It’s tough because fast bowling is such a brutal thing to do, especially for English bowlers, who bowl more than any other bowlers in the world through international and county cricket.
What was on your to-do list when you started at ECB?
My first target was to get 12 bowlers who were good enough to play international cricket and grow from there. As I was working towards that I realised it wouldn’t happen quickly enough if I didn’t have a really good group of coaches in place in the counties to support me.
I’m very proud of the fast bowling coaches who are out there now. One of the first I took under my wing was Chris Silverwood, and I’m incredibly proud to see him go on to become England Fast Bowling coach and now the England Men’s Head Coach.
There are others like Richard Johnson, Jon Lewis, Graeme Welch, Alan Richardson, Neil Killeen, Glenn Chapple and Jason Kerr to name a few, and I always tried to give them a chance to work on the Pace Programme or with the Lions.
That was solely with the aim of having the best group of fast bowling coaches working in county cricket. I believe we’ve now got the best network of fast bowling coaches in the world.
What role has county cricket played?
I’m very strong on the fact that county cricket has played a massive part in developing these fast bowlers for England’s success – for the World Cup success, for Ashes wins, being number one in the world. It has been a huge team effort and county cricket should get a huge amount of credit for that.
I encouraged the Directors of Cricket to employ full-time fast bowling coaches so that these guys were working with the players all year round.
Most counties now have a fast bowling coach, and they’ve pretty much all come through the ECB Level 4 programme, which is absolutely world-leading in coach education. They’ve been given the chance to work with all our young bowlers so they can see what’s required of an international bowler and then develop their own programmes at their counties.
You are a great believer in using the latest science and medicine research in your coaching. How has that helped the development of fast bowlers in England?
We have amazing experts around us in the sports science team at Loughborough, who have been brilliant for the England fast bowlers.
If we can’t keep them fit we can’t make them better bowlers. We needed to tap into that, and something I did very early on was to bring science and medicine into fast bowling.
I challenged them to help me keep the bowlers fitter so I could get them to bowl more and keep improving. That inclusive process ensured it wasn’t just a coach bowling them until they broke and then the medics bringing them back.
It was a relationship where we all helped each other reach that goal. It’s still a goal we’re working towards because the physical demands of fast bowling are absolutely brutal and we must never forget that.
Who are the bowlers to really benefit from that approach?
Mark Wood is a good example. After two or three years of a chronic ankle injury we used some great science to lengthen his run-up. We didn’t just do it for the sake of it, we lengthened it because we knew it would lengthen his delivery stride, which we knew would take some of the pressure off his ankle.
He bowled fast for eight or nine months up until the World Cup and it wasn’t until the last three balls of the World Cup that something went! We built the belief back into his body, which brought the belief back into his bowling, which got him to love the game again and bowl with freedom.
Very early on, before he played for England, I did a bit of work with Stuart Broad. We were doing research at the time which helped us understand the back injuries which could result from bowlers being in certain positions and we saw that Stuart was getting in that position. We put some coaching methods in place to help him with that.
Jimmy Anderson was also suffering from stress fractures and was attempting a remodel of his action. The research we were doing told us this wasn’t the correct thing for him to do. We put him back to his natural action and helped him be the best version of himself that he could.
How did the Pace Programme help you develop young fast bowlers?
It was always a programme designed to educate young bowlers about strength and conditioning, nutrition and bowling technique. It was designed to have a long-term effect.
It didn’t mean they were going to turn into an international bowler after their first year on the programme; they still had to go through county cricket, learn their craft, learn how to recover from injuries and have a better understanding of their technique to make them more skilful.
I’m proud that our practice is now being replicated, on a smaller scale, in county cricket. To see that the information, ideas and principles are filtering down, the legacy will be that our fast bowling depth will stay strong for years to come.
What have been your proudest moments?
The proudest thing for me is seeing a group of England bowlers who have now won global tournaments and been successful in Test cricket. Even when we lose some bowlers we’re able to be a top bowling side thanks to our strength in depth.
There are many bowlers who came through the pace programme and the Lions who have never played for England but have been good enough to do so. I’m really proud of the guys who you see playing now, but I’m equally proud of those who are good enough to play international cricket but never got the chance because of the strength above them.
There are really too many people to thank, but everyone I’ve worked with has had a positive effect in some way.
Gordon Lord [former ECB Elite Coach Education Manager] needs a lot of credit for encouraging me to improve as a coach and setting me up with my mentor Dave Alred.
“Professor Nick Peirce, Dr Mark King and Dr Paul Felton were incredibly supportive early on when it came to helping me understand the science. I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed working with Rob Ahmun and Ben Langley as an integrated team.
There are obviously many more people who have helped along the way, to whom I’m very grateful.
What’s next for you?
I’m not looking for a huge amount of time out because I love coaching and I want to get back into that as quickly as I can.
“I would love to go back into county cricket at some point, I’d really like the chance to work closely with and develop a smaller group of players over a period of years and I’m open to going back into international cricket again in the future.”