New eyes and ears driving Philippe's 'bold' state switch

Josh Philippe hopes his strong relationship with coaching maestro Greg Shipperd and captain Moises Henriques can help him rediscover his best in 2024-25.

Philippe has made the switch east this winter, signing with NSW Blues for the Sheffield Shield and One-Day Cup competitions after a title-laden six years with his native Western Australia.

It will see the Australia limited-overs capped wicketkeeper-batter align his state and Big Bash coaches and captain under a familiar high-performance program having called Sydney Sixers home in the KFC BBL since 2018.

The 27-year-old was part of the WA XI for five of their six Shield and 50-over titles across the past three seasons – the equal most of any player alongside Cameron Bancroft, who also missed last season's red-ball decider after suffering a concussion from a cycling accident four days before the match.

A lack of runs and the return of Australia ODI wicketkeeper Josh Inglis late in the domestic season saw Philippe omitted after being a regular member of the West Australian Shield side since his first-class debut in 2018.

The emergence of Inglis as one of the nation's leading glovemen had seen Philippe linked with a move to NSW for several years where he has played under Shipperd and captain Moises Henriques at the Sixers for the past six seasons.

While Philippe's white-ball game has continued to prosper – which led to a call-up to Australia's T20 team during last December's five-match series against India – his red-ball form fluctuated, and he was unable to nail down a spot as a specialist batter with Inglis available for the final three matches of last season.

Despite being determined to exhaust every opportunity to try and make it work in his native state after signing a two-year extension with WA following a career-best 2021-22 Shield season when NSW were also keen on him, the right-hander hasn’t been able to recapture that same red-ball consistency since.

He started last summer with an almost run-a-ball hundred for Australia A against New Zealand A in September, but a tough few months followed where he managed just the one half-century for WA and averaged 17 in 11 Sheffield Shield innings – making 2022-23 (average of 14) and 2023-24 his two least productive seasons for the state.

While his WA coaches wanted him to stay, the past 12 months had convinced Philippe a fresh start and new ideas could be exactly what he needed.

"It was certainly a very tough decision," Philippe told cricket.com.au after settling in Sydney. "Being a WA boy, I always grew up wanting to be a West Australian cricketer.

"And I'm very lucky that over the last seven years, I've been able to do that and have a lot of success and be a part of an incredibly successful group (with) really good coaching staff as well.

"But I guess it came to the point where I had a hard look at myself and realised I'm not quite getting the best out of myself.

"My contract came up and I felt like a new environment might be the best thing to get me back to where I want to get to, and having 'Shippy' (Shipperd) there and 'Moey' (Moises Henriques) as skipper was also quite appealing."

And it's that continuity of coaches between the NSW state and Sixers Big Bash programs that Philippe's hoping will streamline his approach to help him find the answers he is looking for.

"I've got very good relationship with Shippy from the last six years at the Sixers," he said.

"He's definitely been an important person in that move across and having the alignment of the same coaches, and also the same captain now, for both Big Bash and state cricket is hopefully a good thing.

"It was coming to the time in my career where I felt like it was just the time to make a bold move and get into a new environment and go back to finding the best of myself and in my game.

"That's what I'm looking for – just a fresh environment, maybe some new eyes and new ideas.

"I know where I'm at and I'm just ready to put a few new things into work and just put a massive focus on getting it right and getting a lot more consistency in my performances."

Philippe won’t have to look too much further than new teammate Ollie Davies for inspiration of how quickly fortunes can change.

The 23-year-old batting sensation admitted on this week's episode of the Unplayable Podcast he "thought about quitting red ball cricket" at the start of last summer when he couldn't crack the Blues Sheffield Shield side, before peeling off three centuries for the season to become one of their most important players within a few months.

"Now I love red-ball cricket," Davies said on the Unplayable Podcast, "it's just funny how it all happens.

"We had a red-ball session (around the start of November last year), which I batted well, and I just said, 'alright, let's just bat like I would in a white-ball game'.

"I played my shots but did it well and then next thing you know I was playing a Shield game, scored a hundred and next thing you know, I'm thinking about red-ball cricket again."

It's the "absolute freedom and confidence" that Philippe will be out to replicate as he joins the Blues this season, where his first challenge will be to edge out incumbent wicketkeeper Matthew Gilkes, Australia Under-19 World Cup-winning gloveman Ryan Hicks and his Aussie U19 predecessor Lachlan Shaw.

"There's certainly an opportunity to be that No.1 'keeper-batter and that's what I want to do," he said.

"If I can get runs in all formats for the Blues and stack a lot of consistent performances together, I think the rest will kind of look after itself.

"Ollie's a great example that – he had an exceptional last year in all formats and it certainly looked like he played with absolute freedom and confidence and that's exactly what I'm looking for."