by With angry fans, board resignations and a prized player joining a richer local rival, it is a story more familiar to Premier League football than county cricket.
Sussex fans have become accustomed to losing players during Rob Andrew’s seven years as chief executive. Popular cricketers Luke Wells, Ben Brown and recently George Garton have left in search of pastures new, to some exasperation and confusion.
But Monday’s announcement that batting star Ali Orr would join Sussex’s “El Clasico” rivals Hampshire sparked rare anger among an already restless fan base and saw two former captains walk away from their duties at the club.
Orr was at the forefront of a new generation of Sussex players who broke into the first team as youngsters due to the departure of more experienced bosses. He is a 22 year old local boy, born and raised in Eastbourne, educated at the prolific Bede’s School and graduated from the academy. A first-class average below 40 is such that some good judges consider him a testing prospect.
But despite having one year left on his contract, he has followed Brown down the M27 to wealthier rivals with a testing ground and a Hundred team, having signed a three-year contract.
Orr’s final year at Sussex was Paul Farbrace’s first as head coach. The player had a frustrating year due to injury, while results improved under Farbrace, who expressed his desire to add experience to the team.
Farbrace sometimes publicly criticized players, and the beginning of the end for Orr at Sussex appears to have been a championship match at Derby in September, when the pair had a falling out. Orr was said to have reacted with rude, adrenaline-fueled anger upon being dismissed (as hitters often do) and, in response, Farbrace berated him in front of his teammates and staff. Farbrace acknowledges there was a disagreement, but attributes Orr’s departure to the player’s agent’s desire to improve his contractual terms.
“We had a confrontation”
“We had a collision in the Derby game,” Farbrace said. “But we talked and, as far as I was concerned, everything was resolved. I don’t have any bad feelings towards Ali.
“At the end of the season, his agent wanted to increase his contract. I told him we would be happy to extend it for two years on top of his remaining one, but we don’t have the funds to increase the salary.
“As a result, we gave him a 10-day window to see if he could find something else, and in that window he found a contract with Hampshire. We have since negotiated compensation with Hampshire.
“We don’t want to lose him. We want it to open up in all forms of the game. But we cannot improve their conditions because we do not have the funds to do so.
“We could have forced him to continue for another season, but I didn’t think it was the right thing for Ali or the club. You could have a player for two months thinking about reaching June 1 and talking to other clubs. “That’s not a good place for either party.”
In an interview with the BBC, Sussex president Jon Filby admitted that “there is tension between coaches and players all the time” and “that is probably one of the ‘catalysts’ that encouraged Ali to think that grass was more green elsewhere.
‘Nothing to do with money’
Those who know him say Orr – about whom few have a bad word to say – may have had difficulty getting along with Farbrace after the fight.
Meanwhile, Alan Wells, former Sussex captain and Luke’s father, who coached Orr at Bede’s, said on X on Monday that the move had “nothing to do with money”. In a rare appearance on social media, Wells senior described himself as “totally baffled by how Sussex managed to let go of one of the best young cricketers to have played for Sussex in recent years”.
The tweet captured the mood of Sussex fans. Former England goalkeeper Matt Prior, a vocal critic of the club under Andrew, described it as an “absolute surprise AGAIN from Sussex”, while club legend Chris Nash joined him, describing it as a “worry” and “ “It doesn’t look good.”
It was no coincidence that in the hours following the announcement, Ian “Gunner” Gould, the former Sussex goalkeeper who became a top international referee, resigned from his positions on the Hove main board and the football committee. cricket. On Tuesday morning, championship-winning captain Chris Adams informed the club that he would also be stepping down from the cricket committee, which he is designed to advise and challenge the club’s coaching staff.
Neither has spoken publicly about why they resigned. In an interview with the BBC, Filby said: “I don’t think that’s particularly true” that they had taken a step back due to Orr’s move, adding: “They have both been talking to me about their frustrations with their roles.”
It is understood that the Orr incident could be considered the last straw. While Gould and Adams, as Filby tells it, had long-standing concerns about the need for the committee while Farbrace was in charge (it had met only a handful of times this year) and had been considering their positions, they also did not want to be seen endorsing measure.
“Cricket decisions are made entirely by Paul Farbrace,” Filby said. “I am very pleased that the right model for Sussex is to find the best possible person to lead our cricket.
“Ian helped us move to a one-coach model, but he finds it frustrating not to be involved in all the decision-making. So, he decided that being a board member is not for him.
“There was a similar level of frustration with Chris. He did not want to be associated with decisions that were not his decisions.”
Whether the move was due to a dispute, a desire for more money, or both, Filby was right when he said, “It’s obviously a vote of confidence in Paul Farbrace.” Farbrace will be without Orr next season, but he has brought in experienced Australian opener Daniel Hughes for half the campaign.
Filby added that “Sussex cricket has never been in better shape than it is now”, a statement with which some fans, hoping Orr is not the first of another series of departures, might disagree.
