Veteran NSW and Sixers coach Greg Shipperd signs two-year extension

Greg Shipperd, the doyen of coaching in Australian domestic cricket, has signed a two-year contract extension with New South Wales and Sydney Sixers for the BBL.

Shipperd, 68, is one of the most renowned coaches in the country and has been a key mentor to swathes of Australian players and coaches including the current national men's coach Andrew McDonald.

Having coached Tasmania and Victoria with great success, including four Sheffield Shield titles, he was tasked with a caretaker role with New South Wales in 2022-23 in conjunction with his Sixers role that he has held since 2015.

He was made the permanent head coach of NSW in May of 2023 and will extend his tenure in NSW to four years, and his time with Sixers to 12, after signing a two-year extension.

"You have to be careful not to overstay your welcome," Shipperd told ESPNcricinfo. "But I'm particularly thrilled in being involved with Cricket New South Wales. It's steeped in history and it's got high expectations, and I like to operate within that framework. We've got an exciting opportunity with an emerging group of players to build a foundation that can stand the test of time.

"The mind still is going at 100 miles an hour, but the body's slowing down. But I've got some wonderful support coaches around and the system itself behind the Blues team that represents in the Shield and other competitions is first-class."

Shipperd's record with Sixers has been remarkable as they have not finished lower than third in the eight team competition over the last six seasons, and have finished top two on the table in each of the last five, winning the title twice and finishing runner-up once in that period after also losing the final in his second season in charge in 2016-17.

But his work with NSW remains unfinished, particularly in the Shield. He took over when the Blues finished last in 2022-23 for the first time in 13 seasons. NSW have ended third and fourth in the last two Shield seasons having been in the hunt for the final in the last round of both campaigns. They also lost the final of the Dean Jones Trophy (Australia's domestic 50-over tournament) in 2023-24 to Western Australia and just missed the final last year.

"Progress is being made," Shipperd said. "We had some real challenges in terms of the depth of our squad and our Australian player representation across the course of the year took away some of our next level players in [Sean] Abbott, [Ben] Dwarshuis, and [Tanveer] Sangha, and so for us to be playing off for a grand final spot in the last game of both competitions meant that we're very, very competitive. And so I'm really pleased about that.

"The next step for us is to win those crunch games more often than we did, in particular at the back end of last year."