Don’t hit the panic button
ENGLAND risk finding themselves in a long-term mess if they can’t find a shortterm replacement for Alastair Cook.
That’s the warning from Tim Nielsen (below), the coach who was charged with rebuilding Australia following the retirement of Glenn Mcgrath and Shane Warne at the end of the 2006-07 Ashes.
Cook’s retirement has left England with a 12,000-run gap to fill.
And with Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad also potentially on borrowed time, the heart of this England side could be ripped out by the time the next Ashes roll around next summer.
It’s a similar situation to the one faced by Nielsen when he took over the Aussie hot seat in February 2007. The absence of Warne and Mcgrath, along with Justin Langer and Damien Martyn handed him a significant headache.
And he believes England are now heading for an almost identical situation. “The fact is that you just can’t replace someone who has scored that weight of runs,” he says.
“All of a sudden this is going to be a very different-looking England side, particularly if Anderson and Broad follow him in the next 12 months.
Pressure
“There’s always going to be pressure on players coming into a Test side but when you’re coming in and replacing a guy like Cook then it’s even greater.
“With Australia, every new spinner that came in was immediately labelled ‘the next Shane Warne’, which wasn’t particularly helpful.
“England need to be careful to try to avoid that happening. You need to keep a lid on expectations. The biggest challenge is not to be too anxious and short-sighted – no one is going to come in and immediately start performing.
“And if you chop and change you can often tie yourself in knots. You need to put your faith in a player and give them time. If you don’t do that then the wheels can fall off pretty quickly.”
Given their current top order issues, that’s the last thing England will want in the run-up to an Ashes series on home soil. The squad for the Sri Lanka tour is named this week, with 32-year-old Joe Denly expected to get the nod to open the innings this winter.
But Nielsen believes that youth rather than experience could be the answer, saying: “What young players bring is a fresh attitude, they often have no fear.”