Time for change at the top in England cricket

 

Sometimes its not the big disasters which do for leaders in sport but the accumulation of incompetences. True André Villas-Boas left Tottenham after a 0-5 drubbing at the hands of Liverpool but this was the “final straw” which followed a series of lacklustre results – the 0-3 home loss to West Ham perhaps being the nadir. So it is with England cricket. The Ashes was a disaster, and it mattered. The leaders of England cricket then got into a recriminating frenzy aimed not at themselves or the other guilty parties such as Captain Cook and Coach Flower but bizarrely at Kevin Pietersen. Through leak, innuendo and off-the-record briefing they pointed the finger at the easy target of someone who had “previous” and who was perhaps not blameless in Australia but who performed as well as any other England player on that disastrous tour (not saying a lot I know, but it says something). And whatever else KP might have done he did not quit the tour half way through!

Since Pietersen last played for his country in the Sydney Test match England has now played 18 matches in the two limited overs formats. The record is 13 losses and 5 wins. The losses include against Australia, the West Indies, New Zealand, South Africa and now, humiliatingly, The Netherlands. This rather suggests that KP’s departure from the team has made things worse not better! At the end of the match against the Dutch Jonathan Agnew put it clearly:

"What a shambolic end to a shambolic performance to end a shambolic winter.There really are some questions to be answered here. Realistically, can they give the job to Ashley Giles now?"

Giles himself said this:

“It's disappointing and embarrassing There has to be a certain amount of complacency…there can be nothing else for it…all we can do is apologise and to the people watching at home.”

If the team was complacent then it is Giles who must take the can. It’s unlucky if, like Tim Sherwood at Spurs, you're the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time. Neither man has really cut his teeth at the highest level and each was pitched into a job ill-prepared for it.  

Something is profoundly rotten in the realm of England cricket (it is at Tottenham as well – but that's another story!). The England management style from the top is full of control-freakery which constricts rather than liberates coaches and players. The cynical making of Kevin Pietersen the scapegoat for The Ashes disaster was wrong in every way – not least because it distracted England from the job in hand. Which was to try and recover some form and some dignity.

The England “plan” followed over the past few years has been to throw money at the problem. The best paid cricketers in the world (IPL aside). A team of support staff which outnumbered the playing squad. The men who oversaw this project were ECB Chairman Giles Clarke and CEO David Collier – both covered with Teflon and still in their jobs!

We lost “The Ashes” because an ill-chosen, badly coached, incompetently-captained and rather arrogant and unpleasant team were outfought, out thought and (yes) out-sledged by Australia - and they have been unable to recover since. Giles Clarke and David Collier bear the ultimate responsibility for England's shambolic and continuing fall from grace. Once Clarke had sacked Andy Flower (not unreasonably) he then ducked the obvious next step which was to sack Alastair Cook as well. Instead he chose to say that Cook, clearly part of the problem, will lead the recovery! And to suggest that Cook's failure was in some way attributable not to his own self-evident inadequacies as a Captain but to Kevin Pietersen is characteristic Clarke mendacity. Pietersen is generally liked by the younger fans who cricket needs for the future, but he is disliked by Clarke's generation - especially those with red and yellow ties who sit in the power seats of English cricket. So he was dispensable.

England in the Caribbean and Bangladesh have been awful – the odd highlight like Hales’ batting aside. It is a different squad to the Test squad but has the same brittleness and, as Ashley Giles admits, the same complacently. So what is the solution? I wish I knew. But I do know this if this was an enterprise anywhere else than England cricket the men at the top would fall on their swords. It needs new brooms in the top jobs – people who are prepared to take on the complacency and unsuitability of our antiquated domestic cricket system. Men who are prepared to stand up and be counted and not hide behind PR Speak and not require their players to do so. Change has long been overdue. Lets have it. Now!