While Paul Farbrace remains in charge for England’s five-match one-day series with New Zealand, the interim head coach has told his players that the incoming Trevor Bayliss had a strong input into the selection of the squad and will be monitoring their progress from afar.
Bayliss, the 52-year-old Australian who was named as England’s new head coach last week, is not due to arrive in the country for at least a fortnight, by which time the bulk of the 50-over series against Brendon McCullum’s World Cup runners-up will have been played.
Eoin Morgan captains a side going through something of a reboot after their failure to reach the knockout stages of that tournament, with seven of the 14-man squad not scarred by that failed campaign. The message from Farbrace to promising county products such as Jason Roy, David Willey and Sam Billings is to remain true to the cricket that earned their respective call-ups.
“I have had a few good chats with Trevor,” said Farbrace, who will return to his role of assistant coach once Bayliss is in place. “He had an influence in this one-day side – we chatted prior to the selection – and he’s relayed some thoughts as to how he’d like to see us working, even though he’s not going to be here. He’s watching and keeping a close eye.
“The message will be, you’ve been selected because of the way that you play and you’ve got to go and do exactly the same at international level,” he added. “The players who have the guts to do that and let themselves go are the people that make a success of it. We think we’ve got 14 very skilful cricketers in the squad and we want them to express those skills, play with freedom and take the positive option every given chance.”
In preparation for Tuesday’s series opener at Edgbaston, Farbrace has released all of his one-day players to their counties for this weekend’s round of NatWest T20 Blast fixtures, bar the Durham fast bowler Mark Wood, who comes out of his first taste of back-to-back Test cricket and is likely to be used for just the first three one-dayers in order to stay fresh for the Ashes. Lancashire’s Jimmy Anderson, who has been dropped from the 50-over squad, is the only other player not available.
While the one-day side is a long-term project for Bayliss and Farbrace, the Test team now have five weeks before the Ashes gets under way in Cardiff on 8 July. Reflecting on Tuesday’s defeat to New Zealand that levelled the two-match series at 1-1, Farbrace continued his role as the touchstone of calm in the England setup, admitting: “I didn’t get too carried away when we won the Lord’s Test and I’m not going to be going home and kicking the cat because we lost at Headingley.”
The interim coach, however, was concerned by England’s failure to get the basics right, with nine catches grassed during the series – Farbrace admitted the slip cordon may need a rethink given Adam Lyth’s proficiency fielding there for Yorkshire – and a loss of discipline with the ball in Leeds, when the virtues of an off-stump line were ignored and 194 runs were scored by New Zealand’s No8 and below across the two innings.
“We seem to slip off the gas a little bit and let the opposition back,” he said. “We’ve got players who are developing, but international cricket is about winning. When you get in a position when you are on top you have to make it count.”
