Nottinghamshire’s new Assistant Coach Ant Botha arrives at Trent Bridge with quite a back story.
With cricketing pedigree as a player and coach encompassing experiences in South Africa, England and Australia, the 40-year-old is well travelled – and that isn't the half of it.
A product of Maritzburg college in South Africa, Botha was cut from the same educational cloth as Kevin Pietersen and Jonty Rhodes.
He represented South Africa at under 19 level as a left-arm seamer and batsman and was making his first-class debut within six months of taking up spin.
“I made my debut for Natal and that’s when life became tough. I found being a professional Cricketer quite hard because I didn’t have all the skills I needed with the ball," he said.
“I had drift, I had accuracy and I could compete, but I didn’t have the technique. In those days, you didn’t have specialist coaches to invest time in you, slow your action down and get you into the right positions to deliver the skill.
“What we did have was a wonderful environment and a winning culture. I was playing with the likes of Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener and Jonty Rhodes, contributing along the way as we won the double.
“At the age of 21, I signed for Easterns, who had been newly awarded first-class status and had Ray Jennings as Director of Cricket.
“It meant moving to Johannesburg and it was the start of a memorable three years.
“In the first year we came tenth out of 11, but we had great characters, we changed the culture and in the last of those years we beat Western Province in the final of the four-day competition.
“I learned so much from that, from a man management point of view and from being part of another winning environment.
“In that final, I’ll never forget, we were 25 for 5 and we ended up winning by 300 runs.
“We had guys who fought who never gave up – and I now try to instil all those qualities into the players I coach.”
Botha’s move to England would see him play 270 first team matches for Derbyshire and Warwickshire; the swift career change having come on the back of a chance conversation.
“I was having a barbecue with my family in 2004 and my aunt assumed that my brother and I already knew we weren’t real brothers," said Botha.
“To cut a long story short, I found out about my father who was English.
“Suddenly, I had a passport within a few weeks and the option of playing county cricket was there.
“I was playing my second year in the Derbyshire leagues so, with being in the area, I signed for them and committed to the English game.
“During the next few years, I fell in love with the Midlands - but we never managed to nurture a winning culture on the field, which was disappointing.”
Botha, now into his 40s, had by now garnered experiences – both good and bad – that he could later call upon in coaching.
It was not, however, until making the move to Warwickshire in 2007 that the seeds of his future career really began to be sewn.
“I had a really good year in 2007 and Warwickshire approached me,” he said.
“I jumped at the opportunity and had three great years during which we ended up winning things.
“I was in my 30s and with Graeme Welch (the Warwickshire Bowling Coach at the time) we analysed everything, then remodelled my whole bowling action.
“I was improving my skills and it was helping me get batsmen out.
“It’s a shame it came so late in my career, but that’s when my coaching brain started to take over.
“If I had that kind of support at 16, 17, 18 or 19, I wouldn’t have had to fight for ten years.
“Now I live and breathe giving that kind of support to young cricketers as early in their development as possible.”
Botha had to wait for his opportunity in professional coaching. But, upon relocating to Australia, he took charge of Adelaide Cricket Club, before joining forces once again with Welch, this time at Derbyshire.
“The opportunity to go into a county and try to change a culture was very appealing,” he said.
“I left the family in Australia and got straight into it. We didn’t have a day off. We set-up individual growth plans, we worked out how we could give young guys at 18 what I discovered at 35.
“We nurtured them through that process and helped get them to the stage where they can compete and play the game.”
Botha departed the 3aaa County Ground in August last year, shortly after Welch’s resignation, with the duo going on to continue working together on their own coaching business.
Now back in the professional game with a Club he’s always admired, Botha is aiming high.
“I would love to be a part of something really special here,” he said.
“Notts was one of those clubs that has a pedigree about it. You just have to look at the ground, it’s an absolutely fantastic venue.
“It’s a Club with huge potential. It’s already achieved good things, but it would be nice to be a part of something that really stands out and is sustainable for many years.
“You put all of that together with quality individuals to work with and opportunities like this don’t come around very often.”
Appointed to the role of Assistant Coach, Botha’s primary function in-season will be to run the Second XI and Academy teams.
“It will be great to, at times, work with Test Cricketers – to learn from them, challenge them and maybe inspire something with little golden nuggets of information.
“But clearly my biggest role is to influence the younger guys in their development, which is very exciting.
“Those foundations I can hopefully instil will stay with them and enable them to have a sustainable career, hopefully a Test career, one day.
“I am, I think, very fortunate that given my background, playing other sports, opening the batting and bowling seam at under 19 level, always being very serious about my fielding and being a spin bowler for 15 years, I like to think I’ve got a lot of bases covered.”
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