Renegades part with coach Coyle as cost-cutting bites

Cricket Victoria's major restructure has claimed a high-profile scalp with the Melbourne Renegades WBBL head coach Tim Coyle let go by the club today. 

CV last week announced a "significant re-shaping of the organisation" that resulted in a number of redundancies, particularly in the community cricket space. 

The Renegades and fellow Big Bash club the Melbourne Stars were further integrated into CV last June in another restructure which saw the separate boards and chief executives of both clubs terminated.

The exit of Coyle leaves both the Renegades and Stars WBBL clubs without a head coach after Leah Poulton quit her post after less than a month in the role to return to Cricket NSW.

Coyle had steered the 'Gades to finals appearances in the past two Rebel WBBL seasons in his three years in charge. 

Cricket Victoria's General Manger of Cricket Shaun Graf said the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had led to Coyle's exit.

"The challenges delivered by the current climate have forced us to reassess every area of our High Performance program and unfortunately this has led to the end of Tim's tenure with the Renegades," said Graf.

"This certainly takes nothing away from Tim's contribution to the Melbourne Renegades in his time as Head Coach.

"He's led the club to back-to-back finals campaigns and a number of players have graduated to the national team under his direction.

"We'd like to thank Tim for his hard work over the last three seasons and wish him well for the future."

Coyle was signed by the Renegades ahead of the WBBL|03 season, and the club saw players Sophie Molineux, Georgia Wareham and Molly Strano play roles in Australia's T20 World Cup win earlier this year.

The Stars saw Poulton exit in early April to take up the role of Head of Female Cricket with NSW, having signed on to replace David Hemp as their head coach just three weeks earlier.

Poulton claimed it was "too great an opportunity to pass up" to return full time to Sydney. She had also been head of Australia's female National Performance Squad at the Bupa National Cricket Centre in Brisbane.

The Renegades' KFC BBL coach Michael Klinger had his tenure extended by a further two seasons by the club in March, a show of faith in the first-year head coach after a difficult first season that saw the defending champions lose their first nine matches on the bounce. 

The BBL side won three of their last five games, including the double over the Brisbane Heat to knock that club out of the playoffs race, but still finished with the wooden spoon. 

Both the Renegades and Stars are without principal sponsors after Mars and Optus respectively parted ways with the clubs after last summer.