After the recent sad death of Worcestershire Assistant Coach-Academy Director Damian D'Oliveira, the county have restructured their coaching structure to help accommodate the increasing demands of their growing and flourishing Academy.
Steve Rhodes will continue in his joint role as Director of Cricket-Head Coach with Matt Mason combining the Assistant Coach-Bowling Coach positions.
The new appointments see former Yorkshire left-handed batsman Kevin Sharp take on the role of Second Eleven Coach-Batting Coach with Worcestershire Cricket Board Performance Manager Elliot Wilson becoming Academy Coach.
Rhodes, Mason and Sharp will also work with Wilson in coaching the Academy – all four of the quartet are highly regarded level four coaches, the highest level achievable – while Wilson will also assist with coaching the current playing staff when Academy commitments permit.
Rhodes said: "The Academy role has become far more demanding and in order to continue to develop our crop of emerging young cricketers, we've gone from a three man coaching team to a four man coaching team.
"I have the two people that I wanted to work with me and Matt, to support all the team and players across all age groups."
Sharp has been already been taking care of the Second Eleven duties in a temporary role during the first half of the current campaign during D'Oliveira's absence before he passed away two and a half weeks ago.
The 55-year-old had a 14 year playing career at Yorkshire, scoring nearly 10,000 first class runs with 14 hundreds, and just over 5,000 List A runs.
He also had batting coach, first eleven coach and second eleven coaching roles with the Tykes and played a key part in the likes of Gary Ballance, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow coming through the ranks at Headingley – and becoming England players.
Wilson was previously Cricket Development Officer for Lincolnshire followed by a role as Performance Manager for the Isle of Wight and has impressed Worcestershire with his work with the juniors via the performance programme since joining the Worcestershire Cricket Board 18 months ago.
Rhodes said: "During the past two years, Elliot has developed our Emerging Players Programme which has established full links for the county with recreational cricket from the ages of six through to 18.
"Under his Academy Coach role, he will be able to combine and develop the pathway of players through to the full squad over the years come and continue the great work done by Damian in recent years."
