Shane Watson, a former all-arounder for Australia, has reached an agreement with the Quetta Gladiators to become the team’s head coach prior to the 2024 PSL season. With the announcement, the Gladiators will have their first coaching change since the competition’s inception. Moin Khan, a former wicketkeeper-batter from Pakistan who led the squad for eight years, will now become the team director.
As far as ESPNcricinfo is aware, Watson and Gladiators have reached a definitive agreement; an announcement is anticipated later on Wednesday. It is unclear at this time whether Gladiators are seeking a more extensive purge of the coaching staff that has prevented them from making the playoffs for four straight seasons in light of Watson’s promotion.
The Gladiators were the PSL’s most reliable team in its first four seasons, making it to the championship game three times and taking home the trophy in 2019. After spending two years with Islamabad United, Watson joined the Gladiators in 2018 and played a key role in their success. During his three seasons with the team till 2020, Watson may have been their best overseas player. During their winning season in 2019, he was the team’s top run scorer with 430 runs at a strike average of 143.81. For his efforts, he was named Player of the Tournament.
But since then, the Gladiators have had more difficult times; for the past four seasons, they have all finished outside of the playoff picture. They have maintained the same coach throughout, but they have also kept with Sarfaraz Ahmed as their captain. There has been no indication as of yet that this arrangement will change.
In 2020, Watson, then forty-two, gave up all cricket. In 2022, he became an assistant coach with the Delhi Capitals of the Indian Premier League, working with Ricky Ponting, a former teammate from Australia. He was named head coach of the San Francisco Unicorns of Major League Cricket earlier this year.
Watson represented Australia in 59 Test matches, although his best form came in limited-overs cricket. He took 168 wickets at 31.79 in 190 ODIs and scored 5757 runs at 40.54 with a strike rate of 90.44. He played for Australia in two World Cup winning teams, in 2007 and 2015. He was also a dominant player in the Champions Trophy, taking home Player of the Match in the 2006 and 2009 finals.
He collected 48 wickets at an economy rate of just 7.65 and amassed 1462 runs at a strike rate of 145.32 in T20Is. At the 2012 T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, he was named Player of the Series after leading the run charts with 249 runs at a 150 strike rate and placing second with 11 strikes on the wickets list.
