Poulton breaking new ground

Former Australia batter Leah Poulton took a quiet but significant step in the women's cricket revolution in Brisbane on Wednesday, taking on the role of assistant coach with the men's Cricket Australia XI against South Africa. 

While all eyes were on the action taking place in the middle of Allan Border Field, Poulton, who is a CA high performance coach with the women's National Performance Squad (NPS), was diligently working alongside head coach Ryan Harris behind the scenes, fulfilling a role that in the past would more likely have been taken on by a male equivalent. 

"Any opportunity you get to work with a high calibre of player is just really cool, so to be around the guys, and 'Ryno' (Harris) and the rest of the staff, and see how they go about it, is great," Poulton told cricket.com.au. 

"I've been around cricket a long time but most of the work I've done has been in the female space. I've done a little bit of work in the male pathways space, but nothing in the senior area, so it was different for me but the same as well."

Poulton, who represented Australia 90 times across the three formats between 2006 and 2012, is quickly earning herself a reputation as one of the leading female coaches in Australian cricket. The opportunity to cross over into the men's game however, is one she accepted without really thinking about the potentially pioneering nature of the move; rarely in cricket – or many other sports – has a female played a coaching role at an elite level. 

"Because for me it's my day-to-day job at the National Cricket Centre – I work with (head of the national performance program) Troy Cooley, with Ryno – I'm around those coaches a lot of the time, so I probably haven't considered how different it might be for other people. 

"So for me it's probably more normal than it is for everybody else.

"We were lucky this year to have the male and female NPS programs running side by side. We had a bit of a fast-bowling feel to our NPS program this year and Rynos and Troy Cooley did some really good stuff with the girls.

"We mixed in really well this year; the guys and the girls did some professional development stuff together, some recovery – so while they didn't run as one big group, there was a lot of crossover."

Moving forward, Poulton believes there will be more interaction between male and female players at the top levels, with common sense the prevailing factor in that move. 

"There are certain areas where it's just not different – it's cricket, and it's exactly the same," she explained. "We really just (worked together on occasion) to be sensible. We were booking the same facilities or fields, so it was madness not to do it. 

"Then you get added benefits of the girls interacting with the guys – they've got very similar experiences, so for them to learn from each other, and form good relationships with other athletes, it's just really smart. 

"I can only see it growing into the future."

The 34-year-old also sees a time where women will be taking on senior coaching positions in the men's game more as a matter of course than an exception to the rule. 

"There's definitely more the same than different," she said. "I'm sure there's a couple of subtle differences – in terms of tactics, and the extra pace on the ball, so different angles and potentially different ideas around bowling plans – but that happens between formats and different conditions anyway, so you're always adjusting on the run. 

"So this would just be one more adjustment, like 'I'm coaching men today' as opposed to 'I'm coaching in India'.

"I definitely think the skill-sets are very similar; coaching is all about communicating, it doesn't matter whether you're communicating with a male or a female."