Poulton named Melbourne Stars coach

Cricket Australia’s women’s high-performance coach and former Australian cricketer Leah Poulton has been announced as the new Melbourne Stars head coach for the upcoming Rebel WBBL season.

Poulton takes the reins from David Hemp who has been at the helm of the Stars since the inception of the WBBL in 2015.

Poulton says she is looking forward to the direction she can take the Melbourne side, who finished at the bottom of the ladder in the most recent WBBL season and are the only club in the league to have never participated in the finals.

"I’m really excited to join the Melbourne Stars and would like to thank the club for giving me the opportunity of taking on the head coach role," Poulton said.

"There is fantastic potential both in the current squad and what we can achieve in the future. The club has a reputation for a fantastic family culture and that’s something I’m really looking forward to being part of."

Poulton will join forces with Stars captain Elyse Villani as they look to embark on what Stars General Manager Nick Cummins described as a "new chapter of its WBBL journey."

"I look forward to working with our leadership group and management over the next few months to build our list and am keen to see where we can take this team in WBBL|06," Poulton said.

Since retiring from playing cricket in 2015, the 36-year-old has established herself as a leading figure in the coaching space.

She currently oversees Australia’s female National Performance Squad, a program that fosters the development of promising young cricketers, and she is the coach of the Australia ‘A’ women’s squad, as well as the Australia’s U-19 and U-15 female squads.

Prior to forging this impressive coaching career, Poulton won two T20 World Cups in her 90 matches for Australia, while also playing more than 100 matches for New South Wales.