Darren Lehmann: Northants head coach promises cricket ‘people want to watch’

Lehmann said that although he had turned down other counties in the past, the timing was right on this occasion and ultimately, it was a “no-brainer” to accept the head coach role.

“Cricket is the easy part. We’ll get them playing decent cricket and they’ll entertain and play a brand that people will love to come and watch and I hope they’ll go ‘wow, that’s a good team’. We haven’t changed too much in terms of personnel, but my job is to get them better,” Lehmann said.

Opening bat Emilio Gay and paceman Jack White have left the club to join Durham and Lehmann’s former club Yorkshire respectively.

But they will benefit from having South Africa’s Matthew Breetzke available for their first eight Championship Division Two games and have also re-signed Australian all-rounder Ashton Agar for the T20 Blast.

Lehmann, who needed a triple bypass after a heart attack five years ago, is confident he has already established an excellent rapport with the squad ahead of a pre-season trip to South Africa.

“We haven’t changed much in terms of personnel. We’ll work through the year and work out what works and what doesn’t and make some inroads into a sort of different playing group later on in the year,” said the man once nicknamed ‘Boof’.

“But there’s no reason these kids can’t play for England. That’s my job, dare I say it as an Aussie, to actually get blokes playing for England, that’d be a big goal of ours and then obviously to win games and ultimately win trophies.

“They go hand in hand. If you play well as a said, you get noticed by the England selectors. So for me, it’s about development, coaching, guiding, (being a) father figure if you like, grumpy man occasionally, all those things.”

Northants start their first Championship game of the summer on 4 April when Kent, who were relegated last season, will be the visitors to Wantage Road.