Russell Domingo is a world-class coach who has vast experience working with sides like the Warriors, the South Africa Under 19 team, the Senior Men’s National team, Bangladesh and the Lions.

We at Cricket Fanatics Magazine sat down with him to ask about his experience at the Lions and the Sunrisers Eastern Cape during the past SA20.

When asked about his tenure at the Lions so far Domingo said, “I am in a very privileged position. We have an awesome CEO, great staff members, excellent facilities and amazing players. The Lions is a well-run union and I believe that the Union closely resembles the standards that we see in some international teams.”

Domingo also added that the success of the union is largely due to the recruitment strategy as well as a consistent pipeline of young players coming through. He stated, “I believe in giving as many local-based players as many opportunities as possible. We are fortunate that we have a strong schools and clubs system as well as a good structure at the Lions which helps develop their talent. If the players do not get the opportunity to play they will most likely leave the union.”

The excellent organizational structure at the Lions has recently seen them win the 4-Day competition. Over the course of this season, we have seen young players such as Connor Esterhuizen and Kwena Maphaka perform for the team. The Lions have also appointed former players such as Hashim Amla as the batting coach and Allan Donald as the bowling coach.

Hashim Amla has previously worked at the Cape Cobras, Cape Town Blitz and MI Cape Town before joining the Lions. He is arguably one of the best batters South Africa has ever produced.

When asked about how Amla has adapted to coaching at the Lions Domingo stated, “He is a very good coach. We all know that as a player he was very calm and I believe that this can be instilled into the players. He is a very balanced person who accepts success and failure in equal measure and he understands the pressures of playing provincial and international cricket.”

Recently, Russell Domingo stated that he believes that more 4-Day Cricket should be played across the board. Domingo qualified his views by stating, “Cricket South Africa is obviously under financial constraints, however, we only play seven first-class games per season which is not enough. The lack of four-day cricket is not only hindering our provincial sides, but, it is also affecting the men’s Test side. A possible solution to this issue could be increasing the amount of matches from seven to ten where each team could possibly play each other twice. There have been discussions with Cricket South Africa to see how we could pull the resources together to help create more four-day cricket.”

During the recent edition of the SA20, Russell Domingo worked alongside Adrian Birrell at the Sunrisers Eastern Cape who subsequently went on to win the tournament. When asked why the Sunrisers have been so successful in the tournament Domingo stated, “I have worked with Adrian for a long time. He is a genius at man-management. He seems to know how to get the best out of each player. The organization also recruited the right types of players not only in terms of ability but, more importantly, character-wise as well. By having the right types of characters in place, it allowed the whole group to work towards a common goal which everyone bought into.”