Paul Farbrace is leaving Sussex for Lancashire before he has spent a single day in the job he was appointed to at Hove. The 59-year-old was due to step up from head coach to director of cricket at Sussex this November, but has instead agreed to take the equivalent position at Old Trafford, replacing Mark Chilton, who left the role last month after five years in charge.
A messy exit from Sussex
The timing is awkward for Sussex, which confirmed only in July that Farbrace would move into a part-time director of cricket role and had already lined up Matt Walker as his successor as head coach. That plan followed a turbulent year at the club: Sussex began the 2025 season with a 12-point penalty linked to financial problems, a setback that pushed Farbrace in April to announce he would step down as head coach at the end of 2026. Despite the deduction, he guided the team to third in Division One, a result that underlines his coaching record even as the club's off-field finances remained under strain. His departure now leaves Sussex needing to rethink a leadership structure it had only just settled.
Why Lancashire moved quickly
For Lancashire, the appointment is the first major decision by new chief executive Richard Kenyon, who had promised a review of the cricket operation at Emirates Old Trafford after a season that ended with the club seventh in Division Two - its lowest finish in history. Kenyon described Farbrace's experience across both the men's and women's game, and his understanding of "where the club is and what we need to do to move forward," as decisive factors. Farbrace will also take responsibility for Lancashire's women's team, broadening the remit beyond what Chilton previously held.
The club's playing decline has been steep. Since 2023, Lancashire have won just 11 of 56 Championship matches, were relegated in 2024, and endured a run of nine defeats in ten games last summer that left them above only Gloucestershire. That slide has fed a wider frustration among members that attention has drifted toward commercial projects - including Lancashire's growing ties to the Indian ownership group behind the Manchester Super Giants in The Hundred - at the expense of on-field performance. It is now 11 years since the club last won a major trophy, the 2015 T20 Blast.
What it signals for Old Trafford
Installing a figure of Farbrace's standing above head coach Steven Croft, who has just completed his first full season, points to a restructuring of cricketing authority at the club rather than a simple personnel swap. Farbrace's background as a former England assistant coach, and his work taking Sussex up from Division Two in 2023, gives Lancashire a director with recent, relevant experience of turning around an underperforming county setup. Whether that experience translates quickly to Old Trafford will be the first real test of Kenyon's broader review.