England blow as white ball guru Farbrace leaves before the World Cup

THE man who kick-started England’s white-ball revolution will not be around to see it through at the World Cup this summer after Paul Farbrace yesterday agreed to join Warwickshire at the end of this Caribbean tour.

England’s assistant coach, who was in interim charge before Trevor Bayliss arrived in 2015, replaces Ashley Giles as sport director at Edgbaston after topping a list of candidates that included Andy Flower. He will take up his new post before this momentous World Cup and Ashes summer.

Warwickshire would have waited until after the World Cup in July for their man so he could finish a job he began when England revitalised their whole white-ball philosophy against New Zealand.

But Giles, who left Edgbaston to become England’s team director in December, believed the best time for Farbrace to go was after the five ODIs and three T20s that conclude this tour to minimise disruption.

‘It’s a huge wrench,’ said an emotional Farbrace, 51. ‘I found it hard telling people. Even now it’s tough just thinking about it because I’ve had the opportunity to do something I never dreamed I would come close to doing.

‘I wasn’t good enough to play international cricket, I only played a little bit of county cricket. The reason I left Sri Lanka after a short time and took some stick for it was that I thought the chance to work with England would never come again. All the way through the last couple of months I’ve thought “I really hope I get the Warwickshire job” but I knew walking away from this set-up would be really difficult. It’s not something I’ve done lightly.’

Paul Collingwood, who has just arrived in the Caribbean as an assistant coach, is favourite to step in for Farbrace, with bowling coach Chris Silverwood also highly regarded within the England set-up.

Both look likely to feature in a new England coaching set-up after the Ashes, but Giles is believed to want a head coach to replace Bayliss with Collingwood and Silverwood perhaps being given extra responsibility alongside him for white and red ball cricket.

South Africa coach Ottis Gibson is among the favourites for the top job but Farbrace really should have been a leading candidate, too. He has decided the time is right to go but it appears Giles did not try very hard to change his mind.