Legendary former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff has been named Sydney Thunder men’s head coach in Australia’s Big Bash, his first role in an overseas T20 league.<\/p>\n
Flintoff, 48, has been England Lions’ full-time coach since 2024 and will leave their tour of South Africa early to take up the role with Thunder.<\/p>\n
The Big Bash schedule is yet to be announced but England Lions are due to be in South Africa until a four-day match starting on 18 December.<\/p>\n
He will travel with the blessing of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), who see it as an opportunity for Flintoff to develop as a coach.<\/p>\n
Flintoff, who has signed for the next two BBL seasons and replaces former England coach Trevor Bayliss, said: “I can’t wait to get over there and get started.<\/p>\n
“I’m looking at this with a lot of optimism.<\/p>\n
“You look at the franchise, you look at the players, you look at the support, and I think there’s something really big to build on.”<\/p>\n
Captained by former Australia opener David Warner, Thunder were beaten finalists in the Big Bash last year.<\/p>\n
Flintoff also spent two seasons as Northern Superchargers men’s coach in The Hundred, leading the Leeds-based side to fourth and third-placed finishes.<\/p>\n
He was not retained for 2026 after the franchise was taken over by the owners of the Sunrisers group.<\/p>\n
Thunder general manager Trent Copeland said: “This is a huge day in the history of Sydney Thunder, and the BBL more broadly.<\/p>\n
“Fred brings something truly unique to Sydney Thunder. He’s a global icon of the game, but more importantly he is a modern leader who understands how to build high-performance environments, connect with players as people, and set standards that last.<\/p>\n
“His passion for the game, coaching itself and knowledge of Australian cricket and our Thunder program stood out during the process.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff has been named Sydney Thunder men’s head coach in Australia’s Big Bash,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-457019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}