Former UP Warriorz head coach Jon Lewis has said that owner preferences meant he wasn’t always in complete control of selection decisions in the WPL.
Currently leading London Spirit Women in The Hundred, Lewis spent three seasons with UP Warriorz, starting from the inaugural season of the WPL in 2023. He helped build the team from scratch and took them to the playoffs in the first season. The following two terms weren’t up to the mark, however, with the Warriorz finishing fourth and fifth in the five-team tournament.
Having left the role in 2025, Lewis looked back at his time in the WPL and the challenges of being a head coach in franchise cricket on Wisden Women's Cricket Weekly podcast.
"In the WPL I've had different experience where the owners are closer to the team and sometimes to the selection of the team, to the point where as a head coach you're not always totally in control of the decisions that are being made,” he said.
“And that becomes really tricky from a coaching perspective. But at the end of the day in that space you've got to try and convince the owner and you got to be close enough to the owners that your way is the right way of doing it.
“Now at times I've been able to do that and at times I wasn't able to do that and I've I had to place some teams and players that I wasn't that comfortable doing with. But then I had to get on with the job or not do the job so to speak. So those are things that you know you have, there are challenges of franchise cricket for sure."
Lewis's London Spirit are currently sixth in The Hundred women's table with a win, a tie and four defeats in six matches.
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