“Let’s be honest, we are at this point where we have two coaching jobs and most of the names that will come to you will be foreign coaches. That can’t be right”; Rob Key, the new managing director of England men’s cricket, wants more English managers to take part in the national game.
Rob Key was appointed managing director of England men’s cricket on April 17.
Rob Key insists England must do more to produce local coaches as he ponders the national team’s return to overseas leadership.
Key, who took over as managing director of men’s cricket this month and has already named Ben Stokes as test captain, is looking for two new head coaches after opting to split the job.
Former England one-day captain Paul Collingwood, who held the job on an interim basis on the recent West Indies tour, is a potential candidate for the white ball, but most of those linked to the vacancies would be imports.
South African couple Gary Kirsten and Graham Ford have been touted, Simon Katich seems the most likely of a longer Australian list, while Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka) and Stephen Fleming (New Zealand) have strong claims.
For a country with 18 first-class counties, there remains a feeling that the domestic field should be more competitive, but since 2000 England’s most successful moments have been overseen by the likes of Duncan Fletcher, Andy Flower and Trevor Bayliss.
“Let’s be honest, we’re at this point where we have two coaching jobs and most of the names that will come to you will be foreign coaches. That can’t be right,” Key said.
“That’s a system bug and we have to fix it. Every time I read [the media] you always tip foreign coaches and that is our fault at the ECB.
“You can’t tell me there aren’t good English managers. We have this whole system in place and we have to make it an attractive job and an attractive process. There are so many people in our game who have great views and we want them in training. You can’t always be someone else’s fault. What do we have to do?
Key is one of those who eschewed a tracksuit for a television studio after retiring, scholarship being a less responsible and often more lucrative career path.
But, having thrown himself back into a front-running position in the game, he vowed to tackle the production line. All eight men’s teams in the inaugural edition of The Hundred had foreign head coaches, although James Foster has since replaced Darren Lehmann at Northern Superchargers.
“How do you become a good coach if you don’t have the opportunity? We have to get better,” Key said.
“We just have to make sure we are producing the best managers we can. How many English managers have we had in the national team in 30 years? Two or three? We have to figure that out. We have to do something about it.” otherwise, what’s the point?”
Key, who has wasted no time in rushing to fill what had been a significant leadership void, also has strong ideas about the pick. He plans to restore an independent national selector, but will initially take on some of those responsibilities himself, including deciding how and when multi-format players are rotated and rested.
It has also made it clear that the wobbly test team is in more need than Eoin Morgan’s smoother-running limited operations unit.
“It’s two teams at different ends of where they’re at. You have to make it clear to the coaches when they take this job … you can be the white-ball coach, but by the way that doesn’t mean you’re going to have the luxury of having the players. of multi-format cricket at every game,” he said.
“That’s not a bad thing because there’s a chance we could keep that cue ball set up longer by the younger players coming in. Whether it’s Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes or Jos Buttler, I don’t think it has a relationship.” on how well they play in the Twenty20 World Cup if they haven’t played every match before and are on the Test side.
“It’s a juggling act and we’ll have to be smart about that. There will be series in cue-ball cricket where you have the mainstay of the team but not the absolute best XI.”
