[This article originally appeared in my Substack feed, on 25th July, 2026.]
Interesting substack post from Garfield Robinson, in which he discusses the “curse of expertise” that prevents (some) great players from becoming successful coaches.
“We won the T20 World Cup… and then I was sacked.” Those were
the words of former West Indies bowling great and bowling coach
Curtly Ambrose speaking on a recent podcast.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have won it,” he then joked. Sir Curtly was referring, of course, to the 2016 T20 World Cup triumph of the West Indies…
Garfield Robinson, Curtly Ambrose And The Curse Of Expertise
In his post, Garfield quoted L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers from their 2016 book, This is Your Brain on Sports.
The better we get at a task, the worse we often become at articulating what we’re doing. So it is that the Great Ones are often beset by what is sometimes called the curse of expertise: They struggle to communicate what has always come naturally to them.
The Curse of the Expert: Why the Best Players Make the Worst Coaches, in This Is Your Brain on Sports: The Science of Underdogs, the Value of Rivalry, and What We Can Learn from the T-Shirt Cannon, 2016, L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers
But I am far from convinced that this “curse of expertise” is necessarily the full explanation for the failure of great players to go on to have great coaching careers.
The curse of expertise? Or the lack of coaching expertise?
The “Great Ones” might struggle as coaches, not because they can’t communicate what came so naturally to them, but because they can’t coach.
Coaching is a skill, just as much as bowling a cricket ball.
And pushing a former player through an accelerated coaching qualification is no substitute for coaching experience and ability.
Some people, ex-pro or “civilian”, really can “just do it”; some need support and time to develop the necessary skills.
Players of more modest on-field ability have to be significantly better coaches than their ex-pro counterparts to ever be offered the opportunity to coach at a higher level. Without the ground-work, the demonstrable history of prior coaching success, they won’t even get to interview.
Another player-to-coach promotion?
Which brings me to this news story, released at the start of the 2026 Hundred season— Katherine Sciver-Brunt joins Trent Rockets as assistant coach.
Ironically, Katherine might be well suited to her new role as a coach with Trent Rockets, not because of her previous playing (and commentating) experience, and in spite of holding only a level 2 coaching badge.
But she famously earned the affectionate nickname of “Matron” during her time at Loughborough University, as landlady/mentor/confidante for younger members of the England Women’s training cohort.
An experienced “team builder”.
Perhaps more of a “people person” than her highly combative playing persona might suggest.
Those essential coaching skills that mere “Great Ones” might never have had to develop.
It just might work for KSB!
