Tom Harrison is not a household name just yet but the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new chief executive has been sending forlorn employees on their way with a regularity that Lord Sugar might envy. Paul Downton one week, Peter Moores the next: not to mention less well-known and less important figures such as the former head of corporate affairs, Colin Gibson. The new broom at the ECB may need some new bristles surprisingly quickly.
Already the focus is on the new recruits, rather than those on the way out (Peter and Paul Who? Nigel and Nick Who?). Theoretically, Andrew Strauss, now installed as “Director, England Cricket” (the comma was the biggest surprise of today’s announcement), has been presented with a blank canvas and the opportunity to come in with some mouth-watering replacements. In practice, Strauss was fully involved in the decision to sack Moores, which was revealed 36 minutes after his own elevation had been confirmed by the ECB.
With Strauss’s appointment, the media’s loss is the ECB’s gain. Colin Graves, chairman elect – he officially takes charge on Friday so the calls for him to resign may begin shortly – has lamented the brain drain of former England captains who head off towards the most lucrative available microphone, which is usually the property of Sky TV, upon their retirement from the game. Thus their wisdom is lost to the England management. That exodus has been momentarily checked.
Strauss was never entirely suited to a long career in the media. With one spectacular exception, when his view of Kevin Pietersen inadvertently infiltrated the airwaves last summer, he has been far too measured for this type of work. He was hopeless at hyperbole, insufficiently opinionated, capable of seeing both sides of an argument and he never truly understood how to attract a headline, all of which militates against satisfying the requirements of the modern media whiz-kid.
So it was just a question of time. Strauss was always going to pop back over to the cricketing side of the fence. Ideally, he might have wished to wait a little longer but if you wait too long, sometimes the right opportunity disappears forever.
Strauss has some serious decisions to make. He obviously came to his conclusion about Moores and it is rather clever – and unusual – to contrive to sack someone before officially having the authority to do so. The time to make the big decisions is at the start of a regime before inconvenient things, like events, intrude. The first ones will be critical given that they revolve around the choice of coach, the captaincy, the selection process and, inevitably, Kevin Pietersen.
Those remarks about Pietersen, unwittingly aired in July when Strauss was commentating at Lord’s during the MCC’s bicentenary match, complicate the situation a little. We know what Strauss thinks but he is now dutybound to be as objective and fair as possible. Even so, it would be remarkable if Strauss decides to advocate a return to Test cricket for Pietersen, given recent history. No doubt Pietersen would have preferred Michael Vaughan as the ECB’s new cricket director. Instead they can continue to swop bon mots as columnists for the same paper.
The outlook for Moores was always grim once Downton had been dismissed. We must assume that Strauss wants to keep Pietersen ostracised, insisting that England’s middle-order is currently functioning pretty well and that KP is not the ideal opening partner for Cook (even though this combination would ensure everyone turning up on time). What if Strauss had then decided to stick with Moores? Well, this would have been pursuing the same strategy as Downton. So why sack Downton if the new man continues to follow the path laid out by his predecessor? Hence Moores’s job security was suddenly on a par with that of a Lib Dem MP. Even so, the suggestion that Moores learned of his fate from the media does not reflect well on the ECB.
Hopefully – for the second time in his career – he had a good contract with the ECB. The wise words of Tommy Docherty when discussing football management spring to mind again: “With a good contract and a bad team you’re made for life.”
It seems as if Jason Gillespie, Yorkshire’s coach since 2011, is the preferred replacement for Moores. Given the frenetic activity and the timescale – the Test series against New Zealand starts in 11 days, the one against the Aussies in two months – he has scope to negotiate that “good contract”. Gillespie has previously suggested that he is committed to Yorkshire and he has just signed a contract to return to South Australia for the Big Bash. But all these things are negotiable. The crux is how much Gillespie wants the challenge of the England job and the discomfort (all those nights away from home, all that scrutiny). He would be quite a contrast to his predecessors. Gillespie has a simpler, more relaxed attitude than Moores or Andy Flower.
The odds are that the new man will be an Australian. The name of Justin Langer has been mentioned but he is a non-starter. For family reasons it suits him to stay in Perth at the moment, where he has been coaching West Australia successfully. Moreover, Langer would not be emotionally suited to coaching England. One suspects the blood in his veins is green and gold. He would be uncomfortable in charge of England against Australia. Thereafter, the ECB could turn to an older Aussie who might well be available and who has the appropriate experience – Tom Moody.
The timing is hardly ideal, but it seldom is. In 2013, Australia contrived to catapult Darren Lehmann into their coaching job less than a fortnight before an Ashes Test but even the much-feted Lehmann could not contrive a series victory at such short notice.
Then there is the captaincy. The talk is of Joe Root being given more responsibility as England add ever more weight to the cliche of a strong Yorkshire meaning a strong England. One of the reasons why the ECB may not have spent hours seeking to dissuade Vaughan from withdrawing his name as a candidate as cricket director is the preponderance of Yorkshire folk in the likely setup. Potentially, there is Colin Graves as chairman, Gillespie as coach, Paul Farbrace, once Gillespie’s No2 at Yorkshire, plus the advent of Root as captain. Add Vaughan to that mix and the ECB may as well move their offices to Leeds. No doubt they all read Geoffrey’s columns in the Telegraph as well – once they have finished KP’s.
Strauss and Alastair Cook have always had a strong relationship. If anyone could persuade Cook of the benefits of forsaking the captaincy and returning to the ranks as an opening batsman without too much rancour, it is Strauss. However, promoting Root ahead of an available Ashes-winning captain would be an uncharacteristically cavalier move. Strauss’s inclination may well be to protect Root, currently England’s best Test batsmen, for a little longer in the five-day game, while giving him the one-day captaincy, which has been such a poisoned chalice in recent times.
Then there is the matter of selection. It is anticipated that Strauss, as cricket director, will take over that responsibility from James Whitaker, another likely to be looking for a fresh challenge. Next comes the not insignificant question of which players to pick for the forthcoming international matches. But exhaustion is setting in with all these ECB upheavals. Maybe that’s for next week.
