England’s disastrous Ashes tour claimed a second scalp on Thursday night after Chris Silverwood was sacked as head coach, just a day after his old boss, Ashley Giles, was removed from his role as director of cricket.
With a Test tour of West Indies imminent, and a squad due to be announced next week, the new interim director of cricket Andrew Strauss will appoint a caretaker coach, with assistant coach Paul Collingwood, England Under-19s coach Richard Dawson and Surrey’s Alec Stewart in the frame. Strauss is also due to shake up the coaching structure and backroom staff.
Silverwood, 46, joined the England set-up as a bowling coach in January 2018 after leading Essex to their first County Championship win in a quarter of a century in the summer of 2017. To some surprise, he assumed the top job in October 2019 after the departure of Trevor Bayliss. Giles called him “the outstanding candidate”, while Silverwood expressed a desire to “build on our future, especially in the Test arena”.
This proved more taxing than expected in the long run. Silverwood’s first tour in charge, to New Zealand, ended in red-ball defeat, but in 2020 England packed in Test series victories in South Africa and Sri Lanka, while also beating Pakistan and West Indies at home during that first pandemic summer, living in bubbles and playing in front of empty stadiums. But that was the pinnacle of his tenure.
In 2021 results went south. England won only one of their last 14 Tests and recorded a record nine Test defeats in the year. A series defeat in India was followed by a home loss to New Zealand and another home series with India suspended at 2-1 down with one to play, despite the ethereal form of captain Joe Root. Silverwood had taken over full control of selection after the sacking of Ed Smith by Giles that April.
The Ashes tour, planned in almost obsessive detail, started badly when Rory Burns was bowled with the very first ball from Mitchell Starc. The nadir came at Melbourne when England were bowled out for 68, losing their chance of regaining the Ashes in the process. The tour ended in 4-0 defeat and a last session in Hobart which felt like the final flailings of a dispirited team. England made the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, in which they were favourites, before losing to New Zealand.
Silverwood, a genial man well-liked by the players, was unfortunate that his reign was dominated by Covid, and the subsequent bubble life and rest and rotation policies which followed. But his strategic thinking and communication skills sometimes lacked precision, and under his watch the batting almost completely malfunctioned. England did not pass 300 in Australia, and in their last 21 innings were bowled out for under 200 nine times.
“The last two years have been very demanding,” Silverwood said in a statement released by the ECB, “but I have really enjoyed my time with the team and working with Rooty and Morgs [Eoin Morgan], and I am very proud of this group considering the challenges. I leave with fond memories and I am now looking forward to spending some quality time at home with my family and embracing the next chapter.”
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The ECB’s chief executive, Tom Harrison, said: “During his time in the role Chris has given absolutely everything to make a success of it. He is a man of great integrity, who players and staff alike have enjoyed working with. Under Chris, England men’s white ball teams have been ranked first and second in the world while he also led the Test team to a number of series wins including away in South Africa and Sri Lanka. He has led the England men’s team with great resilience and empathy through an incredibly challenging period for English cricket, and he deserves our sincere thanks and gratitude.”
There was no word on the fate of Graham Thorpe, England’s assistant coach who caused havoc on the final evening of the series by lighting a cigar inside a hotel and taking a video of the players which found its way on to social media, but he was not expected to make the tour of the Caribbean.
Harrison’s position at the top of the tree seems secure in the short term, despite his seven-year tenure overseeing the decline of English red-ball cricket at large and repeat appearances in front of parliament to explain the sport’s shoddy response to issues around racism and governance.
