Chris Silverwood is the new Head Coach of England Cricket.
The influential men in suits at Lord’s have gone for continuity and an endorsement of their own ECB Coach-Education system rather than plumping for a highly-respected overseas candidate. Did the recent criticism of the appointment of overseas coaches for the new tournament called ‘The Hundred’ play a part in their thinking? I hope not.
But, based on Ashley Giles comments earlier in the year when he said Alex Hales was removed from the England World Cup squad after The Guardian published the story about a second failed drugs Test, suggests that it may be possible that our senior leadership has a tendency to Test the temperature of the public water before deciding upon its final decisions in terms of major selection issues.
The former Yorkshire, Middlesex, and England fast bowler is a good, solid man with strong family values who will put his heart and soul into the job. However, his appointment comes with specific risks attached – the main one being a lack of experience inexperienced as a Head Coach, and a relatively limited experience of international cricket as both Assistant Coach and player.
The lack of experience at coaching at elite level can only be overcome by an employer offering a person the chance to grow their experience base. ECB has backed their ‘in-house’ candidate, and the decision represents a nod towards its’ own Coach Education system. After all, if a company invests so much resource into a project, why would they ignore the eventual fruits of its’ harvest?
‘Silvers’ was an excellent contributor to the cohort I was on for the ECB Level4 course in 2012 when he was starting out as a Bowling coach at Essex following a very good career as a fast bowler. He is ambitious, and has a healthy appetite for work allied to being an enthusiastic learner about topics beyond the skills and tactics of the game. His desire to understand more about teams and how they function as well as people as unique individuals is what stood out most for me as a fellow learner in his ‘space’ for two years. Glen Chapple, then Captain of Lancashire CCC and now Head Coach of Red Rose county, was another impressive member of the group, along with many others. Alan Wells the former Sussex captain and one-time England batsman was another individual whose passion for the game, and also the art and science of coaching, had a big impact on me.
Lack of experience shouldn’t prevent a person from being successful in a new role – there is something about freshness and ambition which brings a new energy to a performance-oriented system. On the flipside, a lack of experience might mean a person’s contribution could be different to somebody with rich experience (gleaned over a long period of time) of elite level coaching. Can an international team afford to turn down a top-level coach with global respect in favour of a person learning the role ‘on the job’?
It can work, but my preference would have been to see ‘Silvers’ spend a little longer as ‘an apprentice’ before stepping up to the main coaching role. He would then have been able to extrapolate whatever he wanted to from Gary Kirsten’s reign. My sense is the data which is likely to have emerged from that experience would have offered the Yorkshireman rich-learning, and a chance to ‘round-off’ his apprenticeship more thoroughly.
I say this, partly because I would have loved to see the effect Gary Kirsten could have made on the England Test team at a time when ‘fresh eyes’ may have been ideal, and also partly because I want Chris Silverwood to excel in the role. Being better prepared, over a longer period of time, may have enhanced Silverwood’s prospects of long-term sustainable success. In turn, this would have opened up further prospects of English coaches being offered the opportunity to coach their own national team.
‘Silvers’ achieved some remarkable things in a very short space of time as Head Coach of Essex CCC, and the foundations he laid have since been built upon to enable the possibility that a rich medium to long-term legacy of sustainable success seems increasingly likely at Essex. Let’s hope he can achieve in a similar vein with England.
So I wonder, what really went wrong with the Gary Kirsten situation? Why wasn’t he appointed as England Coach to follow Australian Trevor Bayliss?
Did the selection panel of Ashley Giles (Director of Cricket, ECB), Tom Harrison (CEO) and John Neal (ECB Head of Coaching) really veto him based on his “underwhelming” interview at Lord’s, as has been widely reported?
If the rumours are true, then Kirsten was less impressive in his interview at Lord’s last week than Silverwood. I would be disappointed (and very concerned) if the bosses of English Cricket were put off a quality individual with a superb track-record of coaching international teams if he was rejected on the basis of a one hour interview as opposed to a 30-year track-record of excellence in top-level cricket as a top player turned elite-level coach.
Personally, I am delighted for him, but also very surprised that Gary Kirsten was overlooked for the position, especially as he was clearly the most experienced candidate for the role.
I thought, (as I imagine many respected people in the game around the world did too), that the former South Africa batsman, turned elite coach, would be a ‘shoe-in’ for the role as England’s Head Coach once he was head-hunted. To be flown over from his Cape Town base to be interviewed at Lord’s seemed to reveal the ECB’s desire to negotiate terms, as opposed to interview him for his suitability in the role.
Was the recruitment process flawed from the start?:
Did Ashley Giles desire to unite all three formats of the international game under one Head Coach limit the quality of top-class options keen to take on the job?
The fact is that many modern-day elite coaches want to work in the highly-paid t20 franchise leagues. Most do not want to be constantly on the road, and in the air, breathing the same oxygen with the same group of players for a four-year cycle.
Would it have been wiser for ECB (read Ashley Giles/Tom Harrison) to have gone down the road of recruiting the best person for coaching the national team in each format of the sport?
The continuity could have come from Chris Silverwood acting as the Assistant Coach in one or all formats, and possibly being Head Coach in one of the 3 formats too?
I think of innovative coaches who have England’s best interests at heart and are working overseas like Dermot Reeve – he had his personal problems but I often enjoyed his company and appreciated his left-field thinking and courage in being prepared to innovate. Could he (or other such individuals like Adam Hollioake, or Graeme Hick) have been persuaded to become involved? Or, perhaps a top quality individual such as Eric Simons from South Africa who has gleaned rich experience coaching his home nation, and been Assistant Head Coach/Bowling Coach to both Gary Kirsten and Duncan Fletcher with India, and in the T20 franchise tournaments such as IPL (with different teams) and CPL too.
Eric Simons is the best coach/man-manager in world cricket, in my opinion. He is a principled man, who is values-led. Kind, compassionate, and also tough. He has been an inspirational person in Gary Kirsten’s development as both player (they were roommates at Western Province during Duncan Fletcher’s coaching tenure) and as Head Coach to Kirsten (the player) in the SA National team, before becoming a mentor to his protégé in the international coaching arena.
Gary Kirsten – World-Class Coach, Brilliant Human Being:
I believe that Gary Kirsten’s credentials are better represented by his achievements in playing, coaching and by the leadership capability he reveals in his daily, quality personal example, than any professional interview or powerpoint presentation he might be asked to deliver.
In the top-ranked teams that he led, the intensity and passion for excellence he has as an individual shone through in his team’s demeanour and performance. The sense of fun, and compassion for his fellow man that lurks beneath a tough exterior are illustrations of what makes his teams so cohesive.
I think England have missed a trick in failing to appoint Kirsten. In my opinion, Chris Silverwood’s prospects of ultimately becoming a successful international Head Coach would not have suffered from another couple of years ‘shadowing’ one of the world’s most successful and arguably the most-respected of coaches involved with the sport today.
In declaring my support for Gary’s candidacy as England Coach, I feel it is appropriate to note that we are friends. We have known each other since 1984 when I first coached in South Africa and Gary was one of the young schoolboy cricketers who was part of the Western province Nuffield squad that I worked with at Newlands under my boss’s (former Kent cricketer and Charlton/QPR footballer Stuart Leary) enthusiastic guidance. I think I am capable of professional objectivity and my assessment of his credentials has been greatly enhanced by my proximity to him as he has moved through various professional challenges since leaving Rondebosch Boys High School under the magnificent setting of Table Mountain.
Gary has also been a colleague of mine in the professional mentoring work I have been immersed in since I retired as a professional cricketer in 2003.
I have come to know him well, both as a coach, and a fellow human being. His humanity is one of the traits that makes him such a special individual.
As a consequence of ECB’s decision to appoint Chris Silverwood as England Head Coach, it will allow Gary to commit more time to his beloved family, and other work including his role as head coach of Welsh Fire in ‘The Hundred’.
T20 Coaching has not been his strongest suit as a professional coach so far, but I wouldn’t bet against him bringing his reflective learning practice to Wales and the west country franchise being the beneficiaries of his increasing maturity as a T20 Coach, gleaned through setbacks and disappointments in this domain. Wise reflection into purposeful action is what transforms performance over time and Gary’s richness of experience in IPL and in Australia’s Big Bash tournament offers him a rare perspective on the evolution of the role of the coach in the game’s ‘sexiest’ short-form version. England may still benefit from the wisdom he has gleaned if his players at ‘Welsh Fire’ embrace the opportunity to tap his knowledge and grow their game so they can become highly-successful performers at international level for England.
Test cricket and 50 over ODI Cricket are Gary’s strongest suits as a coach and I felt England would have really benefited from a man who led India to World Cup glory in India with al the pressure and expectation which went with htat role. The fact that the next World cup is in India should have been a factor when considering who should be England’s next coach. And, Gary led South Africa to series wins in both Australia and England – proving his versatility and experience of conditions that contributed to his outstanding achievements. England need to win back the Ashes in Australia in two years time – the prospects are bleak when one considers the past two tours and the impending retirement of James Anderson.
If Jofra Archer stays fit to partner Stuart Broad, who I thought bowled superbly this summer, then Anderson’s absence will be felt less keenly. But it is the top-order batting which remains the biggest worry in English cricket. Gary Kirsten would have added value in this department. Kirsten as Head Coach and Graham Thorpe as Batting Coach could have been ‘a dream team’ for England.
Their mutual understanding of the demands of top-level cricket, and the empathy they have for the modern player and the challenges they face in acquiring the adaptability from one format to another is rare. They know batting inside out, and their support of any player transitioning into international cricket (or a senior player finding their way out of poor form) is what makes them such fine coaches.
Few people in cricket seem to be able to embrace the needs of ‘dynamic strokeplay’ mixed with ‘mastery of the basics’ like Gary Kirsten.
The skill and the will to bat for long periods of time is a subject that Gary has ‘professor-like’ status in. I feel sad for England’s players that they will now be denied privileged access to one of the great men of world cricket.
Supporting Chris Silverwood to Succeed:
Chris Silverwood has many credentials to support his candidacy for the role of being ‘the conductor of the orchestra’.
Firstly, he is English. At a time when the ECB has been heavily criticised for appointing overseas coaches for ‘The Hundred’. Secondly, he has begun his coaching career with considerable success and is a quietly ambitious and tough character despite the cheerful demeanour and gentle engagement with those who are fortunate to connect with him in person. He is both respectful and respected as a person.
Other reasons to support his promotion may have been based around the following reasoning:
- he is ‘in the system’, well-known to (and well-liked by) the current England players, the support staff and the National Governing Bodies’ senior leadership. This means he will start his new job ‘on the front foot’.
- he is popular around the English county cricket scene and enjoys healthy relationships with County Directors of Cricket, Captains, senior players and Head Coaches.
- he has friends (especially from Yorkshire) who are influencers in the media. Men such as Sir Geoffrey Boycott, Michael Vaughan and Darren Gough, will be of great help to his tenure especially during the ‘sticky’ moments should his team falter badly. Silverwood lacks the media profile of some sporting coaches, but it is less of a problem than some may perceive it to be. For example, Andy Flower, Duncan Fletcher and Trevor Bayliss were hardly ‘media darlings’ who were constantly looking to offer regular sound-bites just to satisfy a media that has a voracious appetite. In fact it may be a good thing that the Head Coach remains a background figure who prefers to offer the spotlight to his captain and players.
- he enjoys a good relationship with Yorkshireman Joe Root, who looks set to remain as England Test captain for the period of Silverwood’s contract as coach, unless his batting form disappears completely and he decides to ‘throw the towel in’ with regard to captaincy to re-discover his game. The captain/coach axis is fundamental to a team’s prospects of success. Healthy mutual respect is vital. The pair will need to work well together, and be able to challenge each other to make individual progress in their respective roles. They will also want to ensure a deeper connection develops between the two of them throughout their tenure. Think Flower/Strauss and Fletcher/Hussain, Fletcher/Vaughan versus Fletcher/Flintoff or Moores/Pietersen.
- He represents a success story for the ECB Coach Education programme – another (probably more expensive appointment such as Gary Kirsten) would bring further scrutiny of the level of investment made in the ECB Level 4 UK Coaching initiative if it fails to provide a national team coach. If Silverwood fails in his new job, it may prove disastrous in terms of ECB’s senior leadership finding the necessary courage in taking a leap of faith and appointing another Englishman to follow him. Peter Moores had some success in the role, and brought through some important players, but his time ended badly for all involved. Ashley Giles was rejected for the Head Coach role following a disastrous Worldt20 defeat to Netherlands, so the top job (full-time) went to Peter Moores again. Then, upon Andrew Strauss’s appointment as Managing Director of Cricket at ECB, the former England captain summarily dismissed Moores (unfairly in my view) and recruited Trevor Bayliss. It turned out well, because of the remarkable summer of 2019, but under Bayliss, England’s Test cricket has gone backwards – especially overseas. Put simply, Silverwood must succeed, not only for himself, but for the benefit of his bosses at Lord’s and all the other coaches seeking higher employment who are being developed through the ECB Coach Education system.
However, it is not the Head Coach who goes out to play.
Performance in cricket should be the responsibility of the Captain and his players. The cult of the Coach has ‘grown legs’ in cricket because, I suggest, the dominance of the football culture in England. Coaches don’t bat and bowl, coaches don’t influence tactics ball-by-ball. This must be the domain of the individual players and the more responsible and self-reliant that players become, the better for both them and their respective team(s).
England has not batted very well for years, especially overseas. Until this weakness gets remedied, the team will remain inconsistent.
Appointing national team coaches is a tricky job. Just ask ECB officials who appointed Peter Moores (twice) or RFU bosses who appointed Stuart Lancaster as England Coach after a long audition as interim coach, or FA bosses who thought Kevin keegan was perfectly suited to replace Glenn Hoddle, only for the former Liverpool star to walk away from the job soon after because he was out of his depth.
Hoddle was an excellent coach, ahead of his time, but I can’t help feel that he would be better in the role today than he was when appointed to the job as a inexperienced 38 year-old Chelsea coach back in 1996. In my opinion, you can’t row backwards, and once a person is offered such a role, they have to take it otherwise it may never get offered again. The individual could be accused of lacking ambition. But, it is the responsibility of employers to create greater opportunities when the time is right for the individual and not just to suit the financial or political needs of the organisation at a particular moment in time.
Do I sound too idealist? Maybe? But what I do know, is that highly-promising elite level coaches don’t come around too often and they deserve protection from themselves sometimes.
Once they fail, they are seen as ‘damaged goods’ and their self-confidence gets badly dented in the face of public humiliaition and their credibility in the eyes of their peers takes a hit too. It can, and should be avoided with a longer, more robust preparation phase. We want our best future coaches of the national team to be ‘more than ready’ when their time comes to lead the side towards greater glories on the biggest stage.
The time is now right to ensure every England supporter gets fully behind the ECB’s decision to appoint ‘Silvers’, and ensure that the team isn’t de-stabilised by any possible negative media reaction should the team under-perform this winter. There is a major period of international cricket coming up in advance of the next Ashes Tour, and I believe the former Essex Head Coach can have strong impact on the team in his new role.
I only wish that ECB had seen the sense in giving Gary Kirsten the job and allowed Chris Silverwood longer to prepare himself for one of the biggest roles in world cricket. I believe that both men would have benefitted form such an arrangement and most importantly, I reckon the England team would have done so too.
Neil Burns