Leicestershire targeting promotion, says Wasim Khan

Leicestershire are targeting promotion from Division Two in 2015, says new chief executive Wasim Khan – despite the club failing to win a match since September 2012.

The Foxes finished the 2013 and 2014 seasons without a single victory in the County Championship.

Some of their best players – Josh Cobb, Nathan Buck, Greg Smith and Shiv Thakor – left Grace Road over the winter for pastures new.

But Khan believes their new trio of Australians – coach Andrew McDonald, captain Mark Cosgrove and 2015 overseas player Clint McKay – can spearhead a challenge for promotion.

“We’ve made quite a few changes,” Khan told Sky Sports News HQ. “We’ve got a new head coach in Andrew McDonald. We’ve got a new captain in Mark Cosgrove who has come over from Australia for the next two years. We’ve also got Clint McKay as our overseas pro for this year.

“We’ve signed Grant Elliott and Kevin O’Brien for our Twenty20 campaign so we hope that a blend of some senior players along with the younger talented players will help us this year.”

Leicestershire continue to develop some highly promising youngsters, and the 2XI won the treble last season, and they give Khan confidence that a push for promotion is a realistic challenge.

Opener Cosgrove, a British passport holder, has plenty of experience of the county championship following a successful spell with Glamorgan.

“We’ve got to aim for promotion,” Khan said. “Everyone starts on zero points in April,” he said. “We came very close to winning games last year but couldn’t quite get over the edge. So it’s important we do that and have high aspirations.

“If we tell the players we want to finish mid-table we’ll finish second bottom. We’re motivated to get promoted. So everything we do at Grace Road must lend itself to winning and that’s important on and off the field.”

'Bigger clubs'

An annual departure of their star players has become something of an unwanted tradition at Grace Road.

The likes of David Masters, Darren Stevens, James Allenby, Harry Gurney, James Taylor and Stuart Broad have all learned their trade and become established players at Leicestershire before moving to bigger clubs.

Khan admits that yearly exodus has to stop. Asked how he would do it, he said: “Hopefully by creating the right environment. We’ve got a fantastic head coach in Andrew McDonald. I’m hearing the same things about him as I heard about (title-winning Yorkshire coach) Jason Gillespie when he first started in county cricket.

“I think there are always alarm bells when players leave because they are unhappy. If they leave because they genuinely believe they can go on to bigger and better things at another county, you can kind of live with that.

“What you can’t live with is players who leave because they are unhappy. I think that’s been the case here in the last 18 months. We absolutely need to address that. The only way we can do that is to become more competitive on the field, but also create a learning environment for young players.”  

Khan is the first British-Asian chief executive in county cricket and he is hoping to build the club’s relationship with Leicester’s large Asian community.

“There is a huge demographic here in Leicester which has become disconnected from the club,” he said. “Cricket as a whole hasn’t been great in integrating and bringing Asian communities into the game. It can be done – a lot has been done now in the county circuit. Hopefully having the likes of me here will build trust in the community.” 

Leicestershire kick off their season on Sunday against Glamorgan.