It is possible to arrest the decline in English Test cricket, starting with bringing those overseeing it to accountChris Silverwood is taking the positives. Chris Silverwood was expecting this. Chris Silverwood has found, squinting through his Victorian eyeglass, something to build on here.Watching Silverwood’s deeply weird performance in front of the cameras at the end of the third Ashes Test in Melbourne – batting away concerns, wincing in the sun, and wearing throughout the pitying smile of a man who knows that all of this is simply another stage in the vast, unknowable masterplan of Chris Silverwood – it was hard not to worry a little about England’s head coach; to search in vain for the line between nightmarishly bad...
Players’ limitations the head coach cited after England’s thrashing by New Zealand are a result of decisions he has madeRepeatedly, as the home team came within a raincloud of losing two Tests against a country with a fraction of their resources, England’s head coach Chris Silverwood and his camp kept talking about inexperience. His players couldn’t have attempted to score three runs per over for two sessions after a generous New Zealand declaration at Lord’s because they didn’t have the experience. They collapsed in three other innings due to inexperience. It was unfair to expect more given the players rested from the side. Related: Five things for England to fix before the Test series against India | Tanya Aldred Related:...
This is a weirdly muddled England Test side, planning for the Ashes while the best team in the world are in townAdam Gilchrist’s autobiography True Colours: My Story is one of the great “unreliable narrator” sports books. Not because there’s a single false note in its 500 pages of tearful, heartfelt authenticity, but because it’s not really His Story but is instead a meditation on his own obsession with certain concepts – Australianism, Baggy Greenism, Good Blokeism, and above all the good health, the sacred vibes of the Aussie Test team.Changes of personnel are agonised over. Gilchrist worries endlessly about morale. There are 34 entries in the index under the heading “Team Feeling”. In the Gilchrist universe Test cricket, teamship...
England last combined the role of head coach and sole selector in the 1990s – it will be fascinating to see how it plays outChris Silverwood has preferred to keep a low profile during his time as England’s head coach but by now taking on the additional job of sole selector, and thus approaching something more commonly found in football and rugby, the spotlight will get a notch or two brighter.In a year when the stated aims are clear – add the T20 World Cup to the trophy cabinet and regain the Ashes – the question of who is responsible for what has certainly been simplified. Joe Root and Eoin Morgan, respective captains of the Test and white-ball teams, remain...