Piet Botha quits as Warriors coach

Midway through a season in which the Warriors have lost 12 of the 17 matches they have played across all formats, head coach Piet Botha has announced he is stepping down with immediate effect. His assistant Malibongwe Maketa will take over for the rest of the 2014-15 summer after which the franchise will advertise the position.

"After some serious deliberation and some poor results over the last few months I have decided that I will not re-apply for the position and that it is only fair on the team, support staff, the board and the public that I step aside as head coach at this time," Botha said. "I believe that the team is in need of a new direction and part of that process is to get a coach with a fresh approach."

The Warriors have endured one of their worst starts to a season primarily because of batting woes. They have lost both the first-class matches they have played in after failing to post a single innings total of over 300, are currently in last position in the one-day points table with four defeats from five games, and finished the twenty-over tournament second from bottom, managing just three wins out of ten matches.

Their overseas professional for the shortest format, Craig Kieswetter, told ESPNcricinfo the major problem lay in their inconsistency. "The team is struggling to put games together and end up playing half a game, so to speak," he said. "There's definitely talent and skill in the side, it's just about getting it to work well."

That has been the prevailing issue for the Warriors for the past three seasons, since their last trophy in 2010-11. Then, with current national coach Russell Domingo at the helm, the Warriors won the domestic fifty and twenty-over competitions, qualified for the Champions League T20 and reached the final. Botha was Domingo's assistant at the time and mentioned that period as being part of the franchise's "glory days."

Although the Warriors reached the final of the twenty-over competition the following year and played in another Champions League T20, they failed to defend either title and have not reached such heights again. A player drain was partly responsible for that with Johan Botha moving to South Australia, Lonwabo Tsotsobe heading up country to the Lions and the retirements of Nicky Boje, Ashwell Prince and Makhaya Ntini. Sporadic national call-ups for Wayne Parnell and Colin Ingram as well as an injury to Rusty Theron also robbed the Warriors of key players for significant swathes of the past few seasons.

Botha has seen all that and more with his involvement in the franchise stretching back a decade. He was part of the coaching structures since 2004, took over as head coach in 2011 and will stay on as a technical advisor to Maketa for the time being. Maketa will likely be the favourite to take over, given his experience at two franchises. He worked as an assistant at the Titans until two seasons ago, when he moved back to his home franchise in the Eastern Cape.

Botha is the second coaching casualty of the summer after it was earlier announced the Knights would advertise for Sarel Cilliers' position next March. Cilliers intends to reapply and after the team reached the final of the domestic twenty-over competition, his chances of another stint would seem fairly strong.