Cricket’s coaches do not often come into the limelight.
Indeed, the coach’s role is relatively new in the sport, compared to others; it was only around the late 1980s to early 1990s that a head coach began to be seen as essential for top-level teams. Professionalism in the game has only grown since then, and now coaches are non-negotiable.
With private investment in the game in the form of the franchise T20 boom, getting coaching appointments right appears more crucial than ever for owners. Captains have long been seen as the de facto leaders of their sides, but the head coach is now equally important.
The challenges of coaching at international level and franchise level are quite different; here, we focus on the latter, where the backroom staff, including the coach, usually have more of a say in the recruitment of players through the draft or auction systems – they do not have the same level of flexibility in international cricket.
Head coaching records are not maintained on any public database – here is a look at the most successful ones going around right now.
Note (a): This piece focuses on the top eight men’s franchise T20 leagues across their last five seasons: IPL, BBL, The Hundred, SA20, CPL, PSL, MLC and ILT20. MLC and ILT20 did not have official T20 status in their respective inaugural seasons – those have been included here. All statistics are correct as of March 25, 2026.
Note (b): The names taken into account are those listed as the official head coach of the franchise. Director of cricket/mentor/assistant coach/analyst roles are not included. It goes without saying that they all play their part in the success (or lack thereof) of a team as well.
Franchise T20 coaches: Who, what, when, where, how?
A total of 254 individual team seasons have taken place in the last five franchise T20 cycles, with 74 different head coaches featuring. Nineteen have had only a solitary season, and three have taken charge of 10 or more individual seasons – Trevor Bayliss (11), Stephen Fleming (14), and Andy Flower (16).
Unsurprisingly, these are the only three on the list to have overseen over 100 matches in this time. Ricky Ponting (96), Daren Sammy (86) and Lance Klusener (80) are the next-highest.
Now, to the important part.
On the raw win/loss ratio, Sarfaraz Ahmed tops the list at 2.667 – now also a member of the Pakistan men’s selection panel, he guided Quetta Gladiators to the Pakistan Super League final last year.
A close second is Adam Voges, but over a longer period. The former Australia batter has taken charge of 65 BBL games, all for Perth Scorchers, and recorded 45 wins. Under Voges, the Scorchers have made three finals in the last five seasons, and won all of them.
Fantastic Mr Flower
Perhaps most impressive of all is Andy Flower’s coaching resume.
It would surprise precious few to see him at the top; even in an environment that does not necessarily discuss coaches to the same extent as players, he is largely regarded as one of the best in the world.
Thirteen of the 74 coaches here have a win/loss ratio of 1.5 or better (i.e., winning 3 out of every 5 matches, on average). Five of them have recorded that over a solitary season.
Seven others have coached multiple seasons, but mostly with a single team – Voges, Ashish Nehra, Jeff Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff have not ventured outside the Scorchers, Gujarat Titans, Hobart Hurricanes and Northern Superchargers respectively.
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Tom Moody, Adi Birrell and Greg Shipperd have all coached in two leagues each, but all of them have just a single season in their ‘second’ one.
Moody has won three Hundred titles with the Oval Invincibles, and coached one season in the IPL. Birrell has three SA20 trophies and another appearance in the final with Sunrisers Eastern Cape, but only one season in the Hundred. Shipperd’s BBL tenure with the Sydney Sixers has resulted in three final appearances but no trophy, and he has had one season in Major League Cricket.
This goes to show that maintaining a solid set of results in such a volatile format has largely gone hand-in-hand with comfort; a single team or league. Adaptability is not quite on show.
And that is where Flower’s record really pops.
For starters, he is the only one of the 74 to coach in five different leagues – IPL (4 seasons), The Hundred (5 seasons), CPL (1 season), PSL and ILT20 (three seasons each). Flower’s combined 16 campaigns in charge have yielded four trophies.
Four is more than anyone else, but that is also partly a factor of Flower receiving more opportunities to coach. More impressive is the range – those titles have come in four different leagues, with the Multan Sultans (2021), Gulf Giants (2022/23), Trent Rockets (2022) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (2025). On four more occasions, Flower has guided his team to a final, including his solitary season in charge of the St Lucia Kings in the 2021 Caribbean Premier League.
Eight finals in 16 seasons is nothing to scoff at; only eleven coaches can boast of reaching a final as often across more than two seasons – Lance Klusener is second to Flower with four final appearances (including one title) in seven seasons across the SA20 and Caribbean Premier League.
The not-so-good records
The other end of the scale (i.e., long-serving unsuccessful coaches), does not really exist. Only natural, since coaches will begin to go out of fashion to owners if their teams’ results begin to drop.
That said, the third-longest serving coach on this list, Bayliss, has maintained a 48-75 win-loss record across 128 games, with one final appearance in 11 seasons. Daniel Vettori ranks fifth for matches (72), and is still just about in the red with a 34-35 record.
Perhaps purely to illustrate the vagaries of T20 cricket, Robin Peterson has won one SA20 and two MLC trophies in six seasons, despite an overall win/loss ratio of 0.933. Every other head coach with three or more trophies has maintained a ratio of at least 1.5.
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Those two leagues in particular do have four teams out of six making the playoffs, so the bar to qualify is lower and knockout matches then become a matter of one good or bad game.
Judging coaches purely on results, of course, isn’t entirely accurate. For one, it is an entire coaching staff that prepares the team and the players who actually go out there and execute. Player development is also an additional ambit of the head coach’s job, but until we obtain a better framework, this rather simplistic examination may have to suffice.
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