Experienced Irish Batting Coach Matthew Mott Impressed With Batting Depth as Ireland Head to Brisbane for UAE Clash

Ireland's Batting Coach Matthew Mott knows a lot about conditions in Australia. Having played for Queensland, where he won a coveted Sheffield Shield Medal, and also with Victoria.

Experienced Mott is relishing his stint as Batting Coach to the squad, which he thinks has great strength and depth.

Barry Chambers: Matthew welcome to Cricket Ireland. For people that maybe don't know you that well, could you tell us a wee bit about your playing and coaching career?

Matthew Mott: Yeah well it's sort of gone full circle. I'm back living in Queensland where it all started. I grew up on the Gold Coast here, which we had one of our Training Camps at.

I played at actually the Gold Coast Dolphins, and had four years with Queensland and had some success there. Won a Sheffield Shield, but was struggling for opportunities, so ended up going and playing with Victoria for the last six years of my career, and had a great time down there as well. And ended up playing a fair bit of Shield Cricket.

And then I got into the coaching ranks, and moved to New South Wales, who I had seven really fun years with. And actually had some time in the UK as well, three years with Glamorgan. So I've just returned back now, and yeah it was a great opportunity that came up with Cricket Ireland, and I'm really really enjoying it.

Barry Chambers: And how did the opportunity come about? Where did the approach come from?

Matthew Mott: I was actually in Glamorgan last year, I was doing a stint at Hampshire with Cricket Australia, and ran into Richard Holdsworth, who was talking mainly about the training base on the Gold Coast, where I played, and obviously the Randwick connection as well.

When I was in Sydney I played with Randwick. So it was ironic the two clubs that I'd played for, Cricket Ireland were already speaking to them about an opportunity. And then the role came up as a Batting Assistant. And Richard gave me a call, and it just so happened that the work I was doing with Cricket Australia dovetailed perfectly with this.

And got the opportunity to go around with the boys in New Zealand for the pre-tour and to Canberra. So that was good to get to know them there. And spent the last three weeks getting to know them again here, leading into the World Cup.

Barry Chambers: And what's your initial thoughts on the squad? I mean you've worked with a lot of teams. How does this squad impress you batting wise?

Matthew Mott: Eh well particularly, batting wise I've obviously seen a fair bit of the guys in my stint in County Cricket. The likes of Stirling and Porterfield and they're just quality players. I think that came through the other day in our match against the West Indies.

But there's some dynamic players there as well. I think Mooney at the end there, really gives us that, you know left field stuff, you know a few reverse sweeps and a really dynamic hitter of the ball. So I think we're pretty well covered across the board.

And the approach that we've got at the moment is to try and set the base, and really come home with a wet sail in those last ten overs. And you know apart from a few jitters there towards the end, I think we executed that plan pretty well the other day.

Barry Chambers: And what changed from the batting against Scotland and Bangladesh at the West Indies? Niall O'Brien talked about having the courage or their conviction, and a bit of belief. Was it really a mental thing?

Matthew Mott: Yes, I really think it was. Full credit to Scotland, I think they bowled pretty well at us. But I think it was just the first game, you know the guys have waited a long time for this. They've been on a lot of pre-tours, and I think the realisation that they were here, and it was the big stage, and although it wasn't the most important match, because it was just a practice match, I think the occasion maybe got to them.

And we were a little bit timid, and that told. And I think the other day we got into a situation where chasing 300 was probably better than chasing 200, to be honest. Because it made us be a little bit more aggressive, and go on our gut feel. I think that the guys really relished that challenge, on a really good wicket at Nelson. So I think it all sort of fell into place really well.

Barry Chambers: Well next up the UAE next week. What can we expect pitch wise from the Gabba?

Matthew Mott: Well with all this rain around at the moment, it's going to be interesting. They're predicting a hell of a lot of rain over the next couple of days. So traditionally that means there's going to be a bit of seam movement up here. When it's quite humid, the water comes back up through the ground. And it does swing around a bit.

So I think it will be quite contrasting to what we experienced in Nelson. But I think we've also got a good batting line up to counter that as well. I think those guys I mentioned earlier, Joyce is in great form as well. So if we do fall into some trouble, I think we've got that real depth in the batting that can, you know, repair things and hopefully cash in on those last ten overs.

Barry Chambers: We've got a nine day gap between that West Indies game and the UAE game, off-field you ran into a few sharks at the golf course I believe?

Matthew Mott: Yeah we got taken down a bit. Michael Caulfield our Sports Psych, who does like his cash, and he got away with a win the other day. So it was good relief. We've got a lot of keen golfers in the squad. I think Golf is a great release for these guys, on their days off.

As you said, nine day gap, it's important that they get away from Cricket for a couple of days, and just be normal. And then you know tomorrow we've already spoken as a coaching group, that you know, they're going to get hit pretty hard physically and skills wise tomorrow and the next day.

And then we'll taper off a little bit after that. But with this wet weather, we're going to have to think hard about how to get the most of the indoor facilities, out of them. And I know that the fielding coach is very keen to get a piece of them in the morning, so they might be a bit sore and sorry tomorrow afternoon.