BOOZE CULTURE ON DISASTROUS ASHES TOUR

ENGLAND’S disastrous Ashes trip was last night further clouded by concerns over a drinking culture developing among players and backroom staff, as the team managing director Ashley Giles prepared an end-oftour report that could decide the fate of head coach Chris Silverwood. With bubble life at times restricting the movement of the tourists, alcohol was more readily available than usual at the team’s various hotels — and that placed a premium on making the most of the occasional night out. Allowances were made because of the claustrophobic nature of life during the pandemic, with the England team spending more time in bubbles than any other side in the world since a pandemic was declared almost two years ago. But some members of the coaching staff are

understood to have been

drinking as heavily as the players.

One possibility after Covid restrictions come to an end is the return of the curfews imposed by former MD Andrew strauss during the previous Ashes tour, when it emerged that Jonny Bairstow had greeted Australian opener Cameron Bancroft with a headbutt in a Perth bar.

strauss, who now chairs the ECB’s performance cricket committee, will assess Giles’s report, along with chief executive Tom Harrison, who is believed to have been unimpressed with the England set-up during his three-week visit to Australia.

In another incident, one of the players declined to take a skinfold test, then claimed England were trying to ‘fat-shame’ him.

A decision on silverwood’s fate will need to be made quickly, with England’s Test team set to leave for a three-match series in the Caribbean towards the end of February.

silverwood has insisted he wants to stay on as England head coach — but admitted he could have ‘shown my teeth more’ to the players amid accusations of dressing-room cosiness.

since beating India at Chennai last February, England have lost ten Tests out of 14 and won only one — their worst sequence for 25 years.

That has left silverwood’s fate dependent both on the postseries report by Giles and the views of Harrison and other members of the performance cricket committee, chaired by strauss.

There is a loss of confidence among the players in silverwood’s ability and disappointment at poor communication.

Before one Test, the coach sat down to tell a player he had been dropped, only for the player to say he had already read of his demise in a newspaper.

But silverwood is adamant that, with the help of a reformed red-ball driven domestic structure, he can turn it around.

‘My job will be under scrutiny,’ he said. ‘But I would love to help effect those changes within the county structures. I would like to put some of this right. I think I’m a good coach, but there are things that are out of my hands.’ with less than six weeks before England fly to the Caribbean, Harrison and strauss have little time to make recommendations to the ECB board. But whoever emerges as head coach may find powers diluted, with silverwood struggling to balance coaching with the demands of the Test and white-ball teams, plus the role of chief selector. Assistant coaches such as Paul Collingwood, in charge of the T20 team’s tour of the Caribbean, and Graham Thorpe may be asked to take on more responsibility. lECB and county chiefs are set for a fresh grilling by MPs next Tuesday about tackling racism in cricket. The DCMs committee has called for the ECB to develop a set of key indicators by which to measure progress on the game’s ‘endemic problem’ or risk losing public funding.