Cricket Fiji is excited to announce Shane Jurgensen as their new National Coach.
It is a remarkable coup for Cricket Fiji to have someone of Shane’s experience joining the ranks, with his previous position being as the National Coach of test cricketing nation, Bangladesh.
Shane started working with Bangladesh – one of only ten countries in the world to achieve test playing and Full Member status with the International Cricket Council (ICC) – as a bowling coach, before working up the ranks to Head Coach in October, 2012. After holding this position for two-and-a-half years, Shane decided he needed a change of scene, and that he wanted to spend more time near his young family, who live in Brisbane, Australia.
“It truly remarkable that we have someone of Shane’s calibre coming to work with us here in Fiji,” said Cricket Fiji’s General Manager, Inoke Lesuma. “To gain someone on our team who has come from a test-playing nation to a country that is not currently a part of the World Cricket League is just unheard of.”
In a deal that was only finalised overnight, Shane will come to Fiji on a three-year contract to coach both the Fiji’s Men’s and Women’s national sides, as well as Fiji’s under-age national representative cricket teams.
The position of National Coach because available when the Fiji National Sports Commission announced a funding initiative to bring international coaches to help develop and raise the profile lesser-known sports in Fiji. After an in-depth selection process, which involved over 60 applications for the position, Shane emerged the preferred candidate, due to his previous success of coaching cricket in a developing country, and his experience of working with players who speak a first language different from his own.
Shane admits that being closer to home will be much easier, but he is also looking forward to getting back to the roots of his coaching career with his new role in Fiji.
“I love purely just coaching – working directly with the players, answering their questions, seeing their continual improvement…things like that,” Shane explained. “In this role, I imagine I will have more time and leeway to do that.”
Shane’s first assignment at the helm in Fiji will be improving the ranking of the national Men’s side, to ensure their re-entry into Division Six of the World Cricket League at the ICC’s East-Asia Pacific regional qualifiers in November later this year.
Shane will move to Fiji next month, to commence his contract with Cricket Fiji on June 2.
PRESS RELEASE