Key is a breath of fresh air but now has to find the right coach
Rob Key started his new job in the same manner as he left his last, with simple plain talking as if chatting to his mates in the pub. “You’re not trying to solve climate change or anything like that. Just make cricket decisions.”
There was no England and Wales Cricket Board suit and tie, just the same blazer and smart trainers he wore working for Sky, and an absence of robotic management speak. “There’s not much else I know other than cricket, really. It’s what I love, it’s what I talk about all the time. And it’s a chance to make a difference.”
He began with the easiest decision of all: appointing Ben Stokes as captain. There was no other candidate, exemplified by the fact there is nobody deemed qualified at the moment to be his vice-captain.
Now comes the hardest call of all and the one that will define Key’s reign: finding a head coach for the Test team. No amount of dry, selfdeprecating humour or homespun common sense will make up for getting that one wrong.
Two of his predecessors, Ashley Giles and Paul Downton, appointed the wrong head coach and it cost them their jobs. Giles pinned his reputation on Chris Silverwood and it backfired badly, casting his judgment on everything else into doubt.
Downton brought back Peter Moores in 2014 despite a mountain of evidence from his first stint with England that he was not suited to coaching at international level.
Key has the benefit of the right amount of distance between retiring and becoming managing director. Giles was too embedded in the county system and wanted to appoint an Englishman. He also carried his own scars from his time as England’s one-day coach and did not believe in splitting the roles, soon overburdening Silverwood with selection, too. Downton had
‘There’s not much else I know other than cricket. And it’s a chance to make a difference’
been out of cricket for more than two decades when he was appointed and was too easily persuaded by others to bring back Moores.
Key will look outside the Lord’s bubble for advice and lean on his old media contacts – the ex-england captains who speak sense and are wellconnected. He says he will not be over impressed by presentations and interviews. The next Test coach will inherit a team with only two players guaranteed selection, batsmen at rock bottom and two bowlers – Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson – recalled at the age of 35 and almost 40 respectively. The coach has to take some batsmen back to basics and rebuild them for Test cricket.
All easier said than done with a structure behind the Test team that does not provide them with the grounding to perform on flat pitches overseas.
Those battles will have to wait for Key, who has more pressing issues but knows from his own career, largely spent in county cricket, that attitudes have to change. It is the less glamorous spadework that could provide Key with his biggest headache, battling counties fearing for their own survival.
Key has reached immediately for the Anderson-broad comfort blanket, meeting Broad last week in London, and Anderson at the Ageas Bowl on Wednesday night, but needs to continue the transition away from both, a decision he agreed with as a pundit. Picking the right coach to have those conversations with Broad and Anderson, and not be overawed by them, will be fundamental to growing the team.
Gary Kirsten has the experience of working in the background with great players and strong captains and there are plenty of white-ball coaches with a track record of success in franchise cricket. Key talked about appointing the best in the business for both roles.
Each of his predecessors had to deal with a crisis. Downton (and to a lesser extent Hugh Morris) had Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss had the Stokes Bristol court case and Giles had the pandemic.
Key will have his, too. He was thrown one curveball when asked about picking Joe Clarke, the Nottinghamshire batsman who was fined and served a four-match ban after evidence at the rape trial of a team-mate revealed he was involved in a Whatsapp group that the judge said was sexist and “trivialised rape”. Key basically said he had served his time (“you can’t penalise people for ever”). It was plain speaking that will be welcomed by many but treads a fine line with ECB values and anti-discrimination. Perhaps picking a head coach will not be the toughest part of the job.