Patience proving a real virtue for Silverwood as he turns back clock
New leadership is blending the best practices from previous regimes, writes Nick Hoult in Cape Town
Trevor Bayliss was renowned for his hatred of team meetings. He felt they were a waste of time, a lot of hot air. But cricket is like clothes in that everything comes back into fashion eventually and Chris Silverwood certainly does things differently to his predecessor.
It is understood the England side have had more team meetings in three months under their new head coach than in four years under Bayliss. Silverwood, part of Bayliss’s backroom team as fast bowling coach, is now in charge and doing things his way. The 3-1 series win over South Africa was the first sign of his influence coming to bear on the Test side.
England have stated the emphasis has shifted from white-ball to red-ball cricket since the World Cup and Silverwood beat off more qualified competition for the job by impressing with his blueprint for the Test arena.
It is simple logic that promotes the fundamentals of old-fashioned values Silverwood learnt as a player at Yorkshire.
First, it is about scoring 400 in the first innings, a yardstick England failed to match up against in the Bayliss era. Ideally it is built on long partnerships, without reckless risk. Silverwood insists on replicating the intensity of cricket in the middle in practice. The ultimate aim is to build a stock of seam bowlers who can take wickets in all conditions, which is why three players were put on fast-bowling central contracts last week. They preach bowling with patience, a “relentless” line and length Silverwood believes was the difference during the last Ashes series. Finally, the key measure of success will be winning away from home.
Much of the Silverwood approach is homespun common sense that all teams aspire to but it is a skill to boil down a complex sport into something easy for players to understand while they are coping with the pressure of performance under great scrutiny.
Gone are the days of aggressive positivity and packing the top order with white-ball specialists, hoping they could transfer their hitting powers to Test cricket. “Big firstinnings runs enabled us to drive forward,” said captain Joe Root after victories in the third and fourth Tests.
England players never understood Bayliss’s insistence you could be positive even in defence. Even Bayliss admitted they looked “muddled” batting in Test cricket and it was a problem he could never solve.
Silverwood now preaches a
“no recklessness” approach with a first-innings target of 400 including, ideally, two centuries, and building partnerships irrespective of time.
In terms of bowling, Silverwood watched and learnt from the Australians last summer as they hit a relentless line and length and used the bouncer as the surprise weapon. It is about bowling with patience, like the 2010-11 team who won the Ashes, and the bowlers delivered against South Africa.
Even Chris Woakes, who has struggled overseas, felt he had learnt on this trip to hit the pitch hard and bowler a fuller length rather than “float it up” there. Stuart Broad was leading wicket-taker with 12 but conceded runs at only 2.3 per over and what was lost amid the remarkable performance from Mark Wood was that, despite reaching high pace, he barely bowled a bad ball either, with an economy rate of 2.7.
Each member of the team and the support staff are encouraged to contribute to meetings.
Silverwood takes the lead on team talks, leaving Root to prepare for batting and captaincy. In the past he felt he had to take charge of dressingroom chats, and never felt comfortable doing so. Easing the burden on the captain but always remembering that in cricket they are the most important figure in the team, is a key skill for a coach. Test cricket is about coaching without ego, letting the captain take the glory and providing the groundwork for that to happen.
Under Peter Moores such attention to detail and control was deemed too claustrophobic and blamed for the mental exhaustion that culminated in the World Cup disaster of 2015.
But Silverwood so far appears to be blending the skills of Moores and Bayliss, providing structure combined with a pastoral care that appears to take the pressure off the players. He promoted Mark Saxby, the team’s long standing massage therapist, to player support coach looking after mental well-being and providing a confidential shoulder to cry on. Ben Stokes admitted after the final Test that he had opened up about his feelings during his father’s illness and it helped to take the pressure off. Stokes lives life on the edge, always step from exploding. He had one meltdown under provocation from a fan but channelled his stress over his father’s illness in the right way to be named man of the series.
“I only spoke to two people in confidence about what happened, but I’m very pleased I managed to do it because if this happened two or three years ago I probably would have kept it internal and who knows what would have happened,” he said.
It echoes with Silverwood’s time as Essex coach. “His biggest quality is to take the pressure away from the players. It’s the most basic and most important skill as a coach,” Ryan ten Doeschate told The Telegraph last year. Bayliss was good at it too and, like Silverwood, recognised keeping players relaxed keeps them fresh. Modern tours allow little time to work on skills on the field so training has to be exacting. England have told players to train every day with purpose. It is about netting as if in the middle. After the fourth Test Stokes talked about England showing their “template” for winning in Australia. Behind the scenes the coach is trying to dampen expectation. He knows they are a long way from competing with Australia on Australian pitches. His blueprint will take time. There will be more setbacks. But for now it is working.
Stokes was able to channel his stress over his father’s illness in right way to be man of series