Cricket: Wright takes over as Derby T20 coach

John Wright.

Former New Zealand captain John Wright is back in the coaching game, and where he spent much of his career.

Wright is taking over as Derbyshire's T20 coach next season. He spent 11 years playing for Derby, scoring almost 15,000 runs for the English county.

Derby are the first English county to employ a specialist T20 coach. The 62-year-old has coached India and New Zealand, as well as guiding the Mumbai Indians to the 2013 Indian Premier League title. He's currently filling a scouting role for Mumbai.

Derbyshire had a dismal year, poor in the T20 and they failed to win a single match in the first-class championship's second division.

"It's a high priority that we improve our T20 performances and the new model allows John to give the NatWest T20 Blast competition his complete focus," Derby chairman Chris Grant said.

Former Derby captain and England test player Kim Barnett is the new director. He was a teammate of Wright's in their playing days.

"We could not have secured anybody with higher pedigree than John to fill this new role," Barnett said.

"He has won the IPL with the Mumbai Indians, been an international coach and was a great player at Derbyshire.

"I could not be more pleased to get him back on board here and work with him. He is a fantastic strategist and will give us a lot of expertise technically and tactically."

Wright played 82 tests and 149 ODIs for New Zealand.