Close friends turn coaching rivals for another Shield final

For a fleeting moment yesterday, upon crossing paths with his Marsh Sheffield Shield final coaching rival Adam Voges in an East Perth café, Chris Rogers considered joining his former teammate for a morning fitness session. 

After all, the pair have been close friends and shared remarkably congruent cricket journeys since first playing together for Western Australia two decades ago. 

And in seasons not long past, since taking the leadership role with Victoria in 2020, Rogers has tagged along for the daily exercise regime Voges undertakes with a colleague, who is also a mutual friend of the pair. 

However, having watched at uncomfortably close quarters a year ago as his long-time mate lifted the Shield at the WACA Ground where they had historically forged so many memories – and seeing him do so at Victoria's expense - Rogers decided to let the latest opportunity slide. 

"I nearly went and did fitness with him, which I have done a couple of years back," Rogers recounts with a smile of yesterday's chance encounter. 

"But I felt that was probably a step too far." 

It might have made for an incongruous vignette – opposition coaches working out shoulder-to-shoulder barely 24 hours before assuming their polarised positions to plot one another's downfall – but it also says much about the camaraderie that flourishes beyond this week's conflict. 

"We still have a very good relationship, and I have a lot of respect for him," Rogers says of Voges, whom he played alongside in 35 Shield games with WA before moving to Melbourne in 2008, then a further five Tests together for Australia during the 2015 Ashes campaign.  

"I've always thought he's been an excellent person first and foremost, and it doesn't surprise me at all how much success he's had." 

By any metric, those successes are remarkable. 

Since assuming the men's coaching role in the west after Justin Langer ascended to the job at national level in 2018, Voges has overseen a program that's delivered the past two BBL titles (to Perth Scorchers) and the most recent pair of Marsh One Day Cup crowns (to WA). 

Should his men repeat last summer's Shield final triumph at the WACA over the next five days, Voges will stand alone at the helm of the only state to hold all three men's domestic trophies across consecutive seasons. 

To scale that peak, he will once again need to vanquish the man two years his senior who was also his sometimes roommate when they travelled in WA senior and second XI teams between 2002 and 2008. 

While confirming he'll be hellbent on ensuring Victoria don't reprise the seven-wicket thumping they inflicted on WA in their most recent Shield meeting at the WACA last week, Voges exudes genuine joy at the results Rogers has achieved in his three years of senior coaching to date. 

"I'm really pleased for Buck to be doing well," Voges told cricket.com.au yesterday. 

"We're both young, and new coaches in our own right and for him to get the Victorian program to where they're into consecutive Shield finals is a credit to him. 

"We're mates, we do catch up and speak but when we play and coach against each other, we're ultra-competitive and that's what we'll be for the week. 

"But once the dust settles, we're mates first and foremost." 

Despite the near-parity in their ages and the proximity of their Perth grade cricket clubs on the Swan River's south bank (Rogers at South Perth, Voges at Melville), the red-headed batting prodigies belonged to different development cohorts when charting their paths through WA's under-age ranks. 

But there's long been a certain symmetry to their progress. 

At the same time Rogers was named in the Australia under-19 squad to play New Zealand in 1996 alongside Victoria's current head of male cricket David Hussey, Voges won selection in a national development team chosen after that year's under-17 carnival. 

Rogers had just turned 21 when he made his Shield debut against New South Wales at the SCG in November 1998, while Voges was barely 23 when he earned his state cap four years later where he batted with Rogers throughout his maiden 39-minute innings which yielded him six runs. 

Even though Rogers began 2006-07 with a Shield career-high of 279 against Victoria, it was Voges – following subsequent unbeaten scores of 152 and 144 – who was called up to Australia's Test squad when their WA teammate Damien Martyn suddenly quit during that summer's Ashes whitewash. 

Almost nine years would pass before Voges eventually received his Baggy Green Cap, by which time Rogers had earned a Test berth against India at the WACA in January 2008, only to be discarded after one appearance and forced to wait more than four years for a second chance. 

The pair's stuttering international progress eventually synchronised in 2015 when they were both included in Australia's Test squad for the two-match series in the Caribbean that preceded that year's Ashes tour to the UK. 

But not for the last time, Voges' success came at Rogers' cost when the latter was struck while batting in the nets at Dominica on the eve of the first Test against West Indies and ruled out of the match with concussion. 

"I'm the reason he actually got a chance because I got concussed in the West Indies," Rogers jokes. 

"So he has a lot to thank me for, really." 

Seizing his chance, Voges purred to 130no and a player-of-the-match honour in the first act of a Test career that remains second only to Don Bradman in terms of batting averages among players to appear 20 or more times – Bradman 99.94 compared to Voges 61.87. 

Rogers returned for the Ashes series that followed, and the friends batted together for the one and only time in Tests during the first innings at Edgbaston where they fashioned the most productive partnership (43) of Australia's wholly sub-par total of 136 as the urn slipped away. 

Forced to wait until the comparatively senior ages of almost 36 (Rogers) and 35 (Voges) before they could claim any form of Test tenure, the experiences earned and lessons learned along the way have ensured further parallels in the duo's approaches to coaching. 

"Maybe we look at the game in a similar manner, in that we probably had to figure a lot of things out," Rogers says. 

"It didn’t come as naturally to us as it did to others, so we had to do a lot of problem-solving and striving to get better all the time. 

"And maybe that shapes the way you coach, and what your beliefs and values are." 

From Voges' perspective, the commonality comes from more than two decades of continuous involvement with cricket at the elite levels as players and then coaches. 

After Rogers retired from Tests after the 2015 Ashes, he played a further season with Somerset in the UK county competition before moving into coaching, initially with Cricket Australia's high performance program and national under-19s squad before replacing current Australia men's team coach Andrew McDonald at Victoria. 

Voges' international career ended with the ignominious Test loss to South Africa at Hobart in 2016, after which he saw out his first-class days captaining Middlesex in the county championship and then took on a mentor role with WA's under-19s as well as head of cricket at his Premier Cricket Club, Melville. 

"I think we've both been involved in the game for a long period of time, and you learn a lot in your journey as a player," Voges says about the path the pair have trodden to post-playing careers. 

"And I think the opportunity we've got now is to pass on those learnings and help the next generation of cricketers coming through. 

"Bucky's had a great apprenticeship in terms of the amount of cricket he's played in Australia and England, and international cricket as well. 

"You take all those experiences, you bottle them up and then you try and pass them on as best you can to the players who get the opportunities these days." 

Given the striking similarities the coaching combatants in this week's Shield final exhibit, it would be surprising if they weren't both eyeing comparable future roles at international level to round out their already impressive resumés. 

However, with son Xavier entering high school and daughter Ella approaching the end of primary education, Voges knows the global cricket schedule's unrelenting demands means any such ambition remains in the future. 

"I've got another year to go with WA, I love my job and I love working with the people I get the opportunity to work with here at the moment," he says. 

"I do have ambitions to coach at the international level at some stage, but whether that's in 12 months or five years' time I don't actually know. 

"I've got a young family and I think all that needs to be considered. 

"A lot of things have to line up – your professional career, the opportunity, and your personal life all have to align for that to become a reality and that's something I am conscious of. 

"At the moment, while I have young kids and I have a great job that I love and feel like I can continue to contribute here, then I'll certainly continue to do that. 

"Where that path leads me over the next few years, I'm not exactly sure at the moment." 

Rogers is similarly circumspect in articulating his ambitions beyond the Victoria job, for which he's currently in discussions about a contract extension. 

Like Voges, he is wary of the impact an international position would bring to family life but also acknowledges that – having come into a senior coaching role two years after his former teammate took up the commensurate position with WA – he has further learning to complete, and titles to win. 

"I'm someone who always aspires, but I think coaching is a skill and it takes time," Rogers says. 

"I probably appreciate that even more now than I did when I started. 

"And there's bad mistakes you make along that way that you look back at, and shudder with embarrassment a little bit. 

"But that's part and parcel, and you hope you can grow and get better and maybe there's some opportunities that are down the line. 

"I'm definitely not seeking them at the moment." 

Instead, his immediate focus is the WACA and not just because his one-time home turf is this week hosting the match he hopes will yield his first interstate coaching trophy. 

Rogers also recognises that the success WA has enjoyed under Voges speaks of a wider accomplishment, one which he and his team have already identified as the benchmark they must strive for. 

It's why, just 12 months ago, he was able to watch his close friend celebrate the Shield win that had eluded them both during their respective WA playing days, without being consumed by envy or enmity. 

"I've seen how hard Western Australia have worked, so in some respects they deserved it," Rogers says of last year's grand final loss to Voges' men. 

"I think all the other states appreciate the group of players they have, and that the program they have is probably at the top at the moment. 

"That was even something we spoke about at the halfway mark of this season. 

"That's the challenge for our group - it's not just to win finals, but to host and win finals which means you are the best program over the length of a season. 

"That's the aspiration, and WA are doing a lot right at the moment clearly. 

"So I've got a lot of respect for them."  

Image Id: 147758B231464508967066CE571FB128