Tom Smith comes into the 2025 season looking ahead to what the future holds for him, with this summer potentially being the last of his career, he opened up about his new hybrid role at Gloucestershire.
“I have been fortunate enough to become involved with the England Women pathways, so I did a little bit with the A team just after Christmas and I’m going to be the Birmingham Phoenix Women’s spin bowling coach in August. So, I guess by defining my contract a bit better by just being a T20 player for 14, hopefully 17 matches, and then being able to pursue coaching development has been really good and the club have been really supportive of that and now that I know that I’ll be an assistant coach for the red-ball team, but as we get closer to the Blast I will need to focus on the playing side of my contract, but it certainly has given me more opportunity to explore different options.”
The left-arm spinner hopes that he can find the right balance in his role as player-coach, with injuries hampering him throughout the 2024 summer.
“There has been a lot of discussion with head coach Mark Alleyne about how that is going to work, last year was tricky because I injured my back, and I wasn’t particularly fit when I was playing. So, I think this year I’m looking at it slightly differently but hopefully towards the end of that first red-ball block, there will be some second XI matches, warm-up games and some club Cricket towards the end of that block so that I can prioritise my playing and slightly tailing off the coaching.”
With 2025 being the final year on his contract, Smith hopes he can performances that show he can still be an effective weapon for his side, like he has been for way over a decade.
Tom Smith. A true legend of the Shire.#BecomeGlorious pic.twitter.com/Z6fWoCJ9kD
— Gloucestershire Cricket 🏆 (@Gloscricket) September 14, 2024
“It’ll be interesting because I’ve always thought that if you do well enough, you’ll get another deal, but I suppose there is a possibility that I could have a good year, and I still want to play but the club might not want me to play. This is the first year where there are so many unknowns going into it, I’m not necessarily thinking it’ll be my last year, but it could well be. I am fortunate that I have prioritised stuff away from my playing career, so if it was my last year, I’d like to think that I’m in a good position as a coach, but I’m definitely going into the summer not thinking that it is the end and hoping that I can continue to play, but I guess most of that won’t be my decision.
Smith went on to speak about what the expectations are for the season, while giving both the player and coach perspective which he has developed over the past two years.
If you asked the players, they’d say they want to get promoted to division one, we want to improve on that red-ball form, and we’d love to retain the Blast. But with my coaching hat on, I want to see more progression. We have finished in the bottom two of the county championship for the last three years and that needs to shift, whether that is promotion or finishing mid-table, we just want to see on-field progression. We saw huge progression with the bat, maybe this year it’ll be with the ball.
CHAMPIONS 🏆 🥇..
— Vitae Sports (@vitaesportsuk) September 14, 2024
Congratulations to @Gloscricket and @vitaesportsuk stars @HALHEAD_ @ben_c64 James Bracey & Tom Smith! #cricket #gloucestershire #vitaesports pic.twitter.com/06NFtqGqXd
