Wade Seccombe has been tipped as a future Australia coach amid a restructuring at Brisbane Heat which has seen him take the head coach position while Darren Lehmann steps back into a senior assistant role for the BBL.
Seccombe, a former wicketkeeper-batter, is the Queensland head coach with the side the current Sheffield Shield champions, and will now be at the top of all formats of the men's game in the state. This latest changes follow the stepping down of Chris Lynn as the Heat's captain.
He will have James Hopes and Andy Bichel, appointed as Queensland's batting and bowl coaches respectively, also working alongside him in the BBL with Queensland Cricket looking to bring their two senior men's set-ups closer together.
The coaching move was partly instigated by Lehmann who only a few months ago signed a one-year extension as the Heat's head coach but now feels this change offers him a better balance while also helping promote Seccombe.
"Darren came to us with some thoughts on how the Heat could develop further, and one of the things we talked through was that there was a chance for us to expand our coaching depth and focus to better prepare our players for a role in the T20 format,'' the Queensland Cricket CEO, Terry Svenson, said
"The change in responsibility was Darren's initiative and we're supportive of that. He was keen to play a role to ensure Wade was best positioned to have the right experience to take on the national coaching role in the future.
"We think Wade is a future coach for Australia and we want to make sure that he's given every opportunity."
The Heat reached the Challenger final last season where they were knocked out by Perth Scorchers, the first time in four seasons that they had made the finals. Their only BBL title came back in the 2012-13 campaign.
"The BBL is very important to the health of the game and for Queensland Cricket, it was the chance for us to look carefully at how we resource the Heat," Svenson said.
"This was an area that the recent external review of the Heat had identified and so the coaching staff and Bennett King, our High Performance GM, worked on an integrated model that can utilise the skills and experience of our coaches with the Bulls and Heat players."
"Darren and Wade will play very important roles for us across the whole season, not just the BBL, when it comes to developing players."
Lehmann, who suffered a heart attack in early 2020, had reflected on his role over the last few months. He will shortly be heading to the UK for his spell as head coach of the Northern Superchargers in the Hundred after which he will focus on the BBL build-up with the competition expected to start in mid-December.
"I said when I re-signed that overall, I really enjoyed the season we had and that hasn't changed,'' he said. "But I have also had a chance to reflect on what is going to be best for me and my family going forward."
"Having a heart attack reinforced how special my family is to me, and I have the chance now to continue to enjoy coaching but also to spread some of the workload and pressure that comes with the job."
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