FEATURE: Northants coach Sadler excited to work with new skipper and ‘leader’ Procter

Head coach John Sadler has labelled Luke Procter 'a leader' - and is backing him to be a big success as the new captain of the County Championship team at Northamptonshire.

The 34-year-old was unveiled as the club's new red ball skipper at the end of last year, with the experienced all-rounder taking over the reins from New Zealander Will Young.

Procter becomes the club's fourth captain in the space of just nine months, with 2022 proving to be something of a problematic one on the red ball captaincy front.

Adam Rossington was due to lead the team into the 2022 campaign, but surprisingly left the club on the eve of the season to join Essex on a year-long loan. He has since gone on to sign a three-year deal to stay at Chelmsford.

Following that unexpected pre-season bombshell, the the captaincy was awarded to Ricardo Vasconcelos.

The young opening batsman did a pretty good job at the helm, but the extra responsibility seemed to weigh heavily on him and his batting form, and he gave up the role mid-summer.

Vasconcelos was then replaced with overseas signing Young, who captained the side until the end of the campaign and can also be pleased with his stint as it ended with Northants finishing an excellent sixth place in the top flight of English cricket.

It was the club’s best finish since Allan Lamb’s side came third in 1995.

Due to his international commitments, it was always unlikely that Young was going to return for another campaign-long stint with the club, and that meant another captain had to be found.

That being the case, the experienced Procter has now been handed the task of leading the County in first-class cricket.

And Sadler, who is preparing for his second season as head coach at Wantage Road, believes he is the perfect man to take on the role.

"Look, last year was a learning for us all I suppose," said Sadler, reflecting on those captaincy issues of 2022.

"But first and foremost, Proccy is highly respected within the group, he is very calm. he is very consistent and he has a very good cricket brain.

"The way he plays his cricket, and his character, are attributes that I am looking forward to working with closely.

"I think they are attributes that will help us moving forward, and I am sure he is going to be good at it.

"It is a new challenge for him, but it is one he is grabbing with both hands.

"We have had a lot of discussions back and forth as he is out in Australia at the moment, as he had agreed to do that before we offered him the captaincy.

"So he is honouring that commitment which is good, but he is going to come back a little bit early, he is coming back in mid-February.

"I am really looking forward to working closely with Luke, and also with Lewis McManus (vice-captain) as his right-hand man."

Procter was one of Northants' standout performers in the Championship last season.

He was the club's leading run-scorer, rattling up 961 runs at an average of 53.38, playing in all but one of the 14 matches.

He also chipped in with a clutch of key wickets with the ball in hand, and the fact that he is such an integral player made him one of the obvious choices to lead the team.

But Sadler knows that the player is also going to have to be wary of not letting the captaincy, and all the extra responsibility it involves, affect his own performance with bat and ball.

"Luke is going to play," said Sadler. "He bats, he bowls, he is a leader in the field, he is a leader in the dressing room.

"But I think one of the things he has to be mindful of is that he has still got to protect his own game.

"Sometimes when you are captain, and I have seen it before where you can get drawn into so many things as captain, you can sometimes forget about the time you need to invest in yourself, and get your own game right.

"So it is partly my job as well to make sure that Proccy still gets the time he needs to focus on his own game and make sure he is good to go as well, because we need him to perform.

"But he is a character who doesn't get too flustered by anything, and I am sure he will be fine.

"We just have to make sure that he is invested in his own game as well as everybody else's, which I am sure he will be."

Procter has become something of a red ball specialist for Northants in recent years, but Sadler says the former Lancashire man is keen to become more involved in the Steelbacks' white ball efforts.

Procter didn't play any white ball cricket for the club in 2022.

He hasn't played a 50-over match since August 2021, and you have to go way back to the Covid-hit 2020 season and the quarter-final defeat to Gloucestershire at Bristol to find his most recent appearance in a T20 Blast clash.

With white ball skipper Josh Cobb likely to be involved in The Hundred again, it may well be the case Procter will be asked to lead the side in the One Day Cup this summer, as Young did in 2022.

But although Sadler confirmed the player is keen to play all formats, he isn’t going to be making any decisions on that front just yet.

"Proccy wants to play in those competitions," said Sadler. "He is still very keen on white ball cricket and he has a lot of skills and attributes to play white ball cricket.

"It is just going to be a case of managing the whole thing really, managing bodies, injuries, niggles and minds. It is a long season and the 50-over competition is quite a long way off at the moment, so we will tackle that a bit closer to the time."