England should appoint Gillespie to restore hard edge

Australian coach could combine with Stokes to compensate for Root’s amiable captaincy style

Never in this Ashes series did England buzz in the field as they did on Saturday afternoon. They ran around and radiated intent and reduced Australia to 44 for four. If only England had buzzed like that in Australia’s first innings, instead of their second, they might be going to the Oval 2-1 up, not down.

Whenever the Australians have been in the field, they have radiated collective purpose: their previous four teams had lost the Ashes in England, but not this time. England have been less dynamic and driven, except for this passage of play at Old Trafford when Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer pounded in for nine-over opening spells and England briefly appeared to be the stronger team.

It was a passionate speech by Ben Stokes in the huddle which had roused the England players. With obvious eloquence, England’s Test vice-captain said the Ashes are on the line, it is now or never, we can still win this game. Had Stokes been able to bowl, he might just have taken over from Broad and Archer, charged through the breach and stormed the castle for the second time in a row.

Stokes is the natural leader in the England dressing room. It can be said the diversity of character is insufficient in England’s Test team, not in their 50-over team, where different sorts of people approach a problem from different backgrounds and angles.

In the Test team one size – one decent, likeable, even admirable size – fits all except Stokes, now that James Anderson is no longer winding up opponents away from the stump mics.

But Stokes cannot be appointed England’s Test captain on anything more than a one-off basis for reasons completely separate from the nightclub incident and Crown Court case when he was found not guilty of affray. The off-field demands would limit his training and drag him down, as they have dragged down all England captains of the past generation eventually; and if there is one eternal verity which has yet to be challenged in the T20 era, it is that star pacebowling all-rounders have too much on their plate to make good captains, from Garfield Sobers to Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff, with Imran Khan the rule’s exception.

Jos Buttler’s leadership potential will soon be exercised as Eoin Morgan’s white-ball successor; Rory Burns, as the only county captain in the Test team, may have long-term potential if he seals his place. Root, meanwhile, even if England lose again this week, has to remain as captain for England’s two-test series in New Zealand, where he will have a new coach in succession to Trevor Bayliss, and for the four-test series in South Africa beginning on Boxing Day. Given the haemorrhaging of South Africa’s talent, which seems to have no end, something will be radically wrong if England do not win that series.

The best batsman does not always make the best captain, but he is more likely to do so than the star pace-bowling all-rounder. India’s Virat Kohli and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, and Australia’s Steve Smith before “Sandpapergate”, have combined the two jobs most successfully. England captains, though, always have those extra off-field demands, of promotions and media work and sponsorship deals. The inexorable pattern – stretching from Graham Gooch to Mike Atherton to Nasser Hussain to Michael Vaughan to Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook – has been for the England Test captaincy to stimulate the incumbent’s batting initially, then steadily stymie it.

As Root cannot, by nature, play the tough guy or bad cop as

The off-field demands of being captain would drag Stokes down

Morgan can, he needs a coach who, when required, can read riot acts. Coaches who have never played at international level – such as Bayliss and others who have been mentioned for the new England role, like Mickey Arthur, Graham Ford or Mike Hesson – do not have enough weight to throw around. It has to be someone who has been through the fire.

England’s director of cricket, Ashley Giles, is looking for a full-time head coach with assistants beneath him. This will work if there are the right people to fit the system. But there are not: nobody who is thoroughly qualified to be an international head coach and in his right mind would live out of a suitcase all year as Bayliss has done, or he would not stay in his right mind if he did. So, the choice of personnel should come first, and the structure designed around them. To give England’s Test cricket the direction and force which have been lacking, Jason Gillespie, the Australian fast bowler who took 259 Test wickets, is the best-qualified candidate: been there, done that, but not parading the fact, although he might be persuaded to regale you with the story of his Test double century as a nightwatchman against Bangladesh; not prescriptive, sensitive to differences, making sure it is fun as well as work, and capable of the riot act when occasion demands.

While coaching Yorkshire, Gillespie got the best out of Root (and won two championships), and while coaching Sussex, the best out of Archer. While Root is captain, the best Test chemistry would be a compound of Gillespie as his coach and more of those Stokes rallying cries.