After 21 years with the English county, Gareth Batty has resigned as head coach of Surrey to become assistant coach of the Chennai Super Kings for the 2027 IPL season. As CSK continues to restructure its backroom personnel, the 49-year-old will work under head coach Zaheer Khan, a former teammate from Worcestershire.
Former England international Batty will take Michael Hussey’s place in the position, joining head coach Zaheer Khan in the redesigned setup. According to news reports, Mohit Sharma, a former player for CSK, will be hired as a bowling coach. When Batty was Surrey’s last manager, the team won the County Championship three times in a row. On Monday, the team announced Batty’s departure on social media.
The post read, “Head coach Gareth Batty is to leave the Club to take up a role with Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. The Club would like to thank Gareth for overseeing a highly successful period in its history. As head coach, Surrey won three County Championship titles in a row from 2022-2024.”
In 2021, Batty took over as head coach of Surrey as soon as he finished playing. Between 2022 and 2024, he led the county to three straight County Championship victories. After that unprecedented three-peat, Surrey finished second to Nottinghamshire in 2025. The 2026 season turned out to be much more difficult: Surrey failed to advance to the later stages of either the T20 Blast or the One-Day Cup, and they were on the verge of relegation going into the final rounds before finishing seventh.
Batty’s transfer to CSK is closely related to the team’s desire to restructure its coaching staff when Stephen Fleming left to take the England Test position. Before IPL 2027, CSK added Eric Simons and James Foster as assistants. Batty now completes Zaheer Khan’s new support staff.
His immediate duties at CSK will include helping the team retain players before the November 15 deadline and helping to organize the mini-auction that will take place in Goa in the middle of December. His selection is based on his T20 cricket expertise, both as a player and as a franchise coach with MI London and Oval Invincibles.
