In England the new year has begun with a row, as the simmering dissatisfaction with Peter Moores as head coach of Team England boils over into the public domain. My estimate is that Moores is now a dead man walking since neither the current captain nor his predecessor seem to have any confidence in him, and that makes his position just about untenable.
At the most basic level, every player has occasional need to work on eradicating faults in his technique or improving his play against different types of opposition or in different conditions. And on the international merry-go-round, players are continually experiencing things for the first time. With the possible exceptions of very stable great teams, every touring party includes players who have never played in or against India or England or Australia or wherever it is. With hardly any time now spent in-country before the first Test, someone has to be the fount of knowledge about conditions and opposition on whom at least the newbies, but more usually also the experienced ones, can call. And someone has to make sure that there will be the proper facilities for practice, that there will be enough net bowlers of the right types, and so on.
What a good coach does is make sure that his players are as well-equipped to play the next game as they can be, but who is best to do that differs for any group of players.
John Buchanan was a great success with Queensland and Australia but a disaster with Middlesex. He was hampered in part by reactionary forces in the county club, but the fundamental problem was that he was simply too advanced for a team of youngsters. He was a professor trying to conduct postgraduate seminars on advanced cricket science with students still struggling with their secondary school leaving exams.
Moores was a hugely successful coach of Sussex but he had grown up with the club, playing for them for 14 seasons, one as captain, before being appointed coach. Just about all his players were ones whose development he had overseen and who had responded to his coaching from an early age. He seems to be brilliant at basic skills, but first Vaughan and now Pietersen (and several senior players if the rumours are true) have found him unable to deliver the expert-level training they require, and found him inflexible in his methods.
Stephen identified Duncan Fletcher’s advice as a likely factor in South Africa’s defeat of Australia as it most certainly had been in England’s in 2005, and as it certainly was when Glamorgan won the county championship in the 1990s. He seems to have a magic touch with any team.
One of the main reasons for his success is his own understanding of what he is for. He sees himself as a consultant, not a dictator. In an argument with the captain, the captain always has the last word and makes the final decision. The press may have talked of “Fletcher’s England”, but Fletcher thought it was Hussain’s England or Vaughan’s England or Flintoff’s England and behaved accordingly.
He isn’t unique, of course. The late Bob Woolmer, John Buchanan, John Wright and Graham Ford have all operated in roughly similar fashion and have achieved a fair amount of success.
What does not work is allowing the coach to assume serious authority. Most failures as coaches fail because the players they are meant to serve object to being treated as puppets or naughty children. The worst examples are Ray Illingworth and John Bracewell, who demanded supreme powers and ruled with an iron hand, in both cases with the result that their teams descended to the foot of the international ranking table.
No, Samir, not just anyone can coach. Not just anyone could be Leo McGarry for Jed Bartlet or Obi-wan Kenobi for Luke Skywalker. But the right man is often the difference between moderate achievement and outstanding success.
"The worst examples are Ray Illingworth and John Bracewell, who demanded supreme powers and ruled with an iron hand, in both cases with the result that their teams descended to the foot of the international ranking table."
You missed out Greg Chappel in this list.
Posted by: Avinash at January 3, 2009 4:20 PM
GP Chappel's name has been excluded probably because he was booted out before the Indian team descended to the foot of the ranking tables, he needed a couple of more years to achieve that!!!
Posted by: Jamie Dowling at January 3, 2009 5:36 PM
Agree with your assessment of Moores' future. Whatever his qualities and achievements as a county player and coach he lacks that something that Woolmer, Buchanan, Wright and Fletcher had. In Ottis Gibson and Andy Flower England have excellent specialist coaches with vast experience. The head coach should be someone who can add value to that in the ways you mention, providing that extra piece of advice to the players.
For me Moores hasn't made a good impression. Too many standard placatories and not enough results to back them up.
Moores may be a good county coach but isn't ready for the international level.
Posted by: Jamie Dowling at January 3, 2009 6:12 PM
Agree with your assessment of Moores' future. Whatever his qualities and achievements as a county player and coach he lacks that something that Woolmer, Buchanan, Wright and Fletcher had. In Ottis Gibson and Andy Flower England have excellent specialist coaches with vast experience. The head coach should be someone who can add value to that in the ways you mention, providing that extra piece of advice to the players.
For me Moores hasn't made a good impression. Too many standard placatories and not enough results to back them up.
Moores may be a good county coach but isn't ready for the international level.
Posted by: Victor Trumper at January 3, 2009 9:38 PM
How soon we forget. Why was Duncan Fletcher let go? Let's not forget England lost the last Ashes series 5-0 when Fletcher was coach. If he was brilliant when England won the Ashes in 2005, he's partly to blame for the last series thrashing, especially since England were not really competitive in any match apart from the one in Adelaide. John Buchanan had his detractors too, the most vocal being his best bowler, Warne.
I write neither to praise Moores nor to bury him, only to say it's easy to be the coach when you have talented players on your side, which is what Pietersen ought to be most concerned about. If Pietersen can't set fields, he ought to learn or to step down as captain. If an out-of-form batsman is allowed to be on the team to be his nurse, well, that shows the problems with English cricket are far deeper than who is coach. Pietersen is a talismanic batsman but it would be irresponsible of the ECB to let him have his way here.
Posted by: Mike Holmans at January 3, 2009 11:57 PM
I didn't mention Greg Chappell as an example because neither was he granted supreme power nor did he rule with an iron hand. He correctly diagnosed what was then wrong with the Indian team but then fell victim to Indian cricket politics before he could actually demonstrate that he was a poor coach who could not solve those problems anyway.
Posted by: Gizza at January 4, 2009 10:47 AM
Sorry Mike but I still agree with Samir, Shane Warne, and Ian Chappell. The biggest difference between cricket and other sports like football/soccer is that the role of the coach is taken up by the captain. This is especially the case for international cricket teams, where everybody has the talent but only the mentally strongest will become true greats of the game. The coach in many other sports decides the tactics to use before the game but the captain has to set field placings and guide the tempo and batting order in cricket.
Don Bradman was never coached; he practised by hitting golf balls against the wall. Neither were any of the other past greats. Coaching would have destroyed the careers of Muralitharan, Chanderpaul, Sehwag and Mendis. Heck, coaches in the past would have discouraged wicketkeepers Gilchrist to improve and become aggressive in his batting because that would have affected his glovework.
It is no wonder that you are English Mike. They have plenty of (see below)
Posted by: Roger@1stSlip at January 4, 2009 11:46 AM
Moores was always in doubt from the beginning. At the time of his appointment there were grave concerns that he was not yet ready to be the national coach and that he should serve time as an Assistant national coach before taking the top job. These concerns have been borne out and it is time England appointed someone with genuine top-level coaching/international experience to do the job.
Pietersen is right to look to include Vaughan in the squad. He is thinking ahead to the Ashes series in June and knows only too well that Vaughan is one player (in or out of form) that the Aussies have genuine respect for/fear.
Posted by: Mike Holmans at January 4, 2009 11:47 PM
@Roger: your criterion of having had top-level coaching/international experience would have ruled out Duncan Fletcher, whose main experience had been to coach Glamorgan to a county championship.
@Jamie: He wasn't right for the current England team. I suspect he would have had a brilliant relationship with Graham Gooch, and would have been good for a team which consisted largely of inexperienced players. The general point is that different teams need different coaches; Moores might have been ideal for New Zealand - just not for England in 2008-9.
Posted by: James at January 6, 2009 2:45 AM
Is there a coach in world cricket that can contain the Pietersen ego? Micky Arthur mus be commended in how he has helped Graham Smith mature as a person and learn to bit his lip. Perhaps if KP has issues they can be handled in private rather than upset team cohesion. Surely Andy Flower must be a contendor. True to England cricket selection policy, he is not from the country, so that should make him well qualified.
Posted by: Mr Shush at January 8, 2009 9:09 PM
I would like to see Jeremy Snape considered as a replacement for Moores. He was an excellent captain at county level, and by all accounts has done superb work with the South Africans in his consultant capacity. The ability to teach technique should not be an important requirement for an international head coach; the ability to keep players in the right frame of mind should be, especially for a team as psychologically fragile as England seem to be.
Posted by: BALA at January 13, 2009 10:40 AM
@Mike
so that basically brings us to the point that the coach has to cater the needs of the players and should act as a support staff. Not the one who leads the pack. Probably Moores, GS Chappel would have been a fantastic Soccer coach where the coach had the bulk of work(considering the pace of the game). A soccer coach would make all the decisions regarding the strategy, substitute replacement. Whereas in cricket all these decisions have to be taken by the Captain(thanks to the umpires who don't allow too many messages to be passed to the field ).
Samir Chopra lives in Brooklyn and teaches Computer Science and Philosophy at the City University of New York; his academic interests include the philosophical foundations of artificial intelligence and the politics of technology. In his third undergraduate year, he captained Mathematics in the departmental cricket competition (and lost to Chemistry in the first round). Samir played C-grade cricket in Sydney and makes guest appearances for his old club when possible (and desirable). Samir runs the blog Eye on Cricket and the cricket page at The Faster Times.
Paul Ford is a co-founder of the New Zealand cricket supporters' cult, the Beige Brigade. He was once described by a current New Zealand cricketer as "looking spastic" even mucking about with an Excalibur and a tennis ball in the backyard. Paul bowls right-armed Nathan Astlesque "nudes", his batting would make Ewen Chatfield look elegant, and he is a committed fielder. He sometimes grows a beard to hide his double chin and inhabits a periphery of cricket that Cricinfo is proud to be glimpsing through this blog.
Stephen Gelb grew up in Cape Town, a short walk from the beautiful Newlands ground. Always a better student of the game than player, his passion for cricket survived eight years as a student in Canada, where he learned to love baseball too. He lives in Johannesburg doing economic research at The EDGE Institute and teaching at Wits University.
Mike Holmans, a database consultant by profession, has spent thirty summers (and a few winters) going to the cricket. Brought up in one and working in the other, his dearest wish is for a season to end with Yorkshire winning the county championship by beating runners-up Middlesex by one wicket with five minutes to go. If it’s also a summer when England win the Ashes, so much the better.
Born in Colombo, educated at Oxford and now living in Brisbane - Michael Jeh (Fox) is a cricket lover with a global perspective on the game. An Oxford Blue who played first-class cricket, he is a Playing Member of the MCC and still plays grade cricket. His views on cricket might best be described as those of a "modern traditionalist". Michael now works closely with elite athletes in his job as a manager at Griffith University in Queensland.
Saad Shafqat takes special pride that his cricket-watching life began during the three-month interval between Javed Miandad's debut Test in Lahore and Imran Khan's 12-wicket haul at Sydney. Although a practicing neurologist based in Karachi, cricket has never been far from his activities. He has co-authored Javed Miandad’s autobiography Cutting Edge and has been a contributor to Cricinfo since 2005. His regular column Reverse Swing appears fortnightly in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English daily.
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