Klinger: Past experience will be invaluable while coaching Gujarat Giants

Michael Klinger wore many hats during his playing days as a highly dependable, ultra-consistent runscorer for the innumerable states, counties and franchises he represented.

In his post-playing days, he is wearing even more. He is currently the head of men's T20 for Cricket New South Wales, overseeing the cricket programs of the two Sydney BBL clubs as well as Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket, where he just pulled off a major coup in signing Ricky Ponting as the new head coach.

In his spare time, he took up a role as batting coach for Sydney Thunder's WBBL side. And now he will be the head coach of Gujarat Giants in the WPL after Rachael Haynes' resignation, having only signed to be batting coach just recently.

"It may seem like a lot of hats but it fits in perfectly well into a 12-month schedule," Klinger told ESPNcricinfo. "I'm really enjoying it, doing mainly the administration role but doing a little bit of coaching has invigorated me to some extent and I've really enjoyed it. I hadn't worked in women's cricket up until October last year and really enjoyed it and feel that I can really help whether it's the Thunder or the Gujarat Giants going forward as well."

Klinger has had head coaching experience before, having coached Melbourne Renegades in the men's BBL for two seasons between 2019 and 2021 before taking up his role with Cricket New South Wales. It wasn't an easy experience with Renegades winning just seven games across two seasons having come into the role cold with no real coaching experience behind him.

But he has learned some valuable lessons from that experience, and his work as an administrator in cricket high performance has given him a different lens on coaching. He has worked with one of Australia's most experienced coaches in Greg Shipperd at Sydney Sixers, NSW and Washington Freedom in setting up all aspects of a cricket program. Then working under the experienced Lisa Keightley recently at Sydney Thunder in the WBBL as a batting coach added another layer to his experience.

"Lisa Keightley was very good at building relationships with the players," Klinger said.

"Certainly, on the back in my role with the Renegades and even just speaking to Ricky [Ponting] over the last four to six weeks around coaching I think is going to be invaluable for me going into this role as well.

"I'm hugely thankful to Rachael Haynes as well. I think without her asking me to come into the batting coach role, none of this would have ever happened. So thankful for her for introducing me into this franchise, originally as a batting coach, and then now obviously the opportunity as a coach."

Klinger does know what a winning team looks like. He won five T20 titles as a player, three in the state-based Big Bash competition with Victoria and South Australia and then two BBL titles with Perth Scorchers under Justin Langer.

What he knows is the importance of getting the most out of your entire squad. Giants struggled last year on the back of Beth Mooney's injury early in the tournament. The return of Mooney and the addition of Phoebe Litchfield add plenty of batting firepower alongside Ashleigh Gardner and Laura Wolvaardt. Klinger worked with Litchfield during the WBBL last year.

"Phoebe Litchfield is already a star but could be the best player in the world in a very short period of time, I think," Klinger said.

"I think there's a pretty well-balanced team.

"You need your big players to be playing well. But you also need a lot of your depth players to be contributing and winning a couple of games for you during the tournament. It's an eight-game tournament, you probably need to win at least four to get into the finals. So that's probably our first aim, is to qualify for the finals and then and then go from there."