Kurtis Patterson, New South Wales star batter, admitted that there is an indefinable tension as they prepare for the upcoming season after Greg Shippard’s axing. Shipped, the coach was told that he would be sacked from the job with a year to go on his NSW contract. However, he will be with the team for the domestic season. There are still four rounds remaining of the Sheffield Shield.
Patterson said, “Yeah, it is different. I think that’s probably where my head’s at in terms of trying to describe it. It’s a different feeling. But it is a professional sport. No one’s safe in their job forever. It’s the nature of the beast. Shippy’s taken it really well, and I think out of respect for him, almost, we all need to knuckle down and take it the same and kind of get on with our jobs.”
“It’s been a bit of a tough week, I think, for all of us. Shield cricket’s difficult, and it’s another curveball we’ve got to deal with. But I guess just really feeling for Greg and to his credit, as everyone would expect, he’s taken it like a legend that he is.”
“I think yesterday, probably a few blokes were a bit unsure of how the day was going to go, but we just knuckled down, got straight into it and tried to do our best to win this game against South Australia.”
Shipperd has been a great coach for NSW as he took a bottom-placed team in the 2022-23 season and helped them reach third place in the 2023-24 season. Under his leadership, NSW also made the One-Day Cup final in the 2023-24 season. Players like Sam Konstas and Jack Edwards advanced to the national setup.
NSW has also seen the emergence of players like Joel Davies, Lachlan Sha,w and Ryan Hadley under his tenure. Patterson believes that Shipperd was leaving NSW in a better position.
He said, “We were struggling there for a while. I think we lost a bit of our identity and lost the idea of how to win and structure games in cricket to set ourselves up to win. There’s no doubt Shippy was the right man for the job when he came in. He’s got so much experience, and that counts for something.”
“He certainly has turned us around. We’ve been competitive in Shield cricket without being as consistent as we would like. This season is a nice opportunity to change that around, and it starts this week.”
“There is a lot of talent there, and it feels like the last six months, a lot of that talent has clicked in one format of the game or the other. So I’m sure whoever gets the job is going to have a nice platform to build off.”