James Thomas, one of sport’s leading High Performance experts, has joined Warwickshire County Cricket Club as its new Performance Director, responsible for bringing future success to the Warwickshire men, Bears women and Birmingham Phoenix cricket teams.
James joins from Manchester City FC where he is the Director of Performance Services and is part of City Football Group’s global network of eleven professional teams.
Previously he was instrumental in building the foundations for a high performing environment at British Gymnastics, delivering considerable medal success at the Tokyo Olympics.
In his 20-year high performance career, he has successfully worked within a number of team and individual sports, quickly learning what it takes to create the right environment for success. These include boxing, judo, wheelchair rugby and athletics.
James replaces Gavin Larsen who stood down at the end of last season.
He takes up the role at Edgbaston in early June but will spend time with the men’s and women’s squads during pre-season as well as other leading names from the world of cricket to ensure he hits the ground running.
In his playing days, he was a professional rugby union player and understands what it means to compete in multiple competitions over a long season. An important consideration bearing in mind player welfare issues in cricket.
Warwickshire Chief Executive Stuart Cain, said: “James is recognised in high performance sport as a real talent and has demonstrated ability to cross sports and quickly grasp what’s important in order to deliver success.
“We wanted someone with real strategic experience of creating world-class, successful performance environments. He’s done that in football, arguably one of the toughest performance environments in world sport, and been equally successful with individual athletes in high-pressure Olympic sports.
“He’s proved that he can move in to a new sport and quickly create a successful performance environment that leads to medals and trophies by developing the facilities and structures needed to create world class players and teams.
“The cricket leadership team has more than 200 years of technical cricket experience and 75 years’ experience of being a Bear. Combining this with James’ expertise will create something special.
“He knows how to build teams as well as individuals that can handle high pressure situations and deliver success. This was one of the areas of improvement identified in the recent high performance review.
“Having worked globally, he also understands the impact of other leagues on domestic structures, something we really need to get our head around as franchise cricket develops.
“The review also demonstrated our need to modernise the way we recruit and prepare for games with greater use of data and analysis. James has some really interesting ideas and plenty of experience in this space which will help us build more accountability and structure in to how we bring in and develop players, as well as create winning teams.
“He’s also used to working with multiple coaches working across different disciplines in men’s and women’s sport. Another important consideration as he will be accountable for success across three different teams playing four different formats of the game.
“I think James’ desire to become a Bear illustrates how the world of cricket is changing and professionalising as a global sport to rival football.”
The search to appoint an experienced Performance Director was handled by specialist high performance recruitment and advisory consultancy, Elite Performance Partners.
Thomas’ role at Manchester City FC saw him lead the performance department across disciplines including sports science, performance analytics, medicine, psychology, all aimed at supporting the individual development of players and on-pitch team performance in the Academy.
He is also a Non-Executive Performance Director at England and GB Badminton, Chair of the Partnership Board at the Manchester Institute of Health & Performance, and a former member of the UK Performance Directors Strategic Group.
Thomas said: “I am delighted to take on the role of Performance Director at Warwickshire County Cricket Club. Throughout the recruitment process I was impressed by the Club’s desire to retain and celebrate its proud Bears culture, whilst embracing the opportunity to evolve and build a high-performance environment that’s capable of achieving sustained, long term success.
“I am excited to meet the players, coaches and wider staff, as we look to work together to achieve extraordinary cricket performances in the future.”
2025 Membership
It’s an historic year for the Club in 2025, as Bears Men and Women will compete side-by-side. Bears together.
Join the journey with Memberships available, including 1882 Full Club (all domestic cricket), our new B5 White Ball (T20, 50-Over and The Hundred) and Junior Bears (U16s).
