Mark Robinson: Warwickshire coach on Sarah Taylor, Alex Hartley and the County Championship

The cold is one of the things Mark Robinson hasn’t missed about county cricket.

In his former life in charge of the England women’s team, home games were at the height of summer, away games were somewhere hot.

Now, in the week of his first competitive match as Warwickshire’s head coach, snow is falling in early April.

And while the weather marks a difference between his old job and his new one, 54-year-old Robinson can also identify similarities between the two dressing rooms.

“Whether you are male or female, you want that emotional safety, the feeling of being valued and backed in your work environment,” he says.

“You have to get your head around your currency being runs and wickets, but that can’t take over your life. You can’t get obsessed with the results. You still have to be a human being.”

It was something of a coup for the women’s game when Robinson, twice a County Championship winner with Sussex, took the England job at the end of 2015.

“My first trip with England was a joint Twenty20 World Cup,” he says. “The men’s team went left to business class and we went right to economy.”

Robinson was in charge when England lifted the 50-over World Cup at Lord’s in 2017. His exit, two years later, came about after a heavy Ashes defeat by Australia.

Now, as he returns to the men’s game full-time, he comes with what he has learned from the “best time” of his life.

“I’d been in the male, chauvinistic game for 35 years,” says Robinson. “With the women I saw inequality and tokenism where I hadn’t previously.

“The women properly played for the love. It wasn’t spoiled by money, agents and all those things. There was a humbleness that was enriching, a desire to be the best they can.

“I’m not saying that isn’t in the men’s game, but there are lessons that can be taken.”

It is timely for such an advocate of the women’s game to be re-entering the male version and Robinson acknowledges he has a responsibility to “keep banging the drum for the women”.

Comparing the women’s game to the men’s is rarely helpful, but there have been two recent high-profile examples of the worlds colliding; one positively, one less so.

Former England wicketkeeper Sarah Taylor, who effectively came out of retirement to play for Welsh Fire in The Hundred on Tuesday, had already previously been confirmed as a member of the Sussex men’s coaching team for the coming season.

And while Taylor will primarily focus on working with keepers, Robinson sees no reason why a woman can’t take a more senior post in the men’s game.

“Of course they can,” he says. “There shouldn’t be any barriers other than your knowledge and experience.

“Her challenge, as it is for any coach, will be getting her message across to the players.

“Sarah Taylor and the likes of Tammy Beaumont and Anya Shrubsole would be fine coaches or administrators, whatever they want to be. What they need is the right support.”