Captain Joe Root ‘getting better all the time’, says Trevor Bayliss
It was very much in keeping with his slightly incurious nature that Trevor Bayliss, in his final press conference as England head coach, had no idea the man who hired him four years ago had been knighted in the previous evening’s honours list.
Andrew Strauss, now Sir Andrew Strauss, recruited Bayliss in 2015 off the back of a trophy-laden record in limited-overs cricket but also because of his reputation as an old-school Aussie who would relax the players after the more intense regimes of Andy Flower and Peter Moores.
The mission, Bayliss was told, was to help a promising generation of England players win their first men’s World Cup and it was accomplished on 14 July this summer when Eoin Morgan lifted the trophy at Lord’s after the gutwrenching super-over drama of that final against New Zealand.
Two months on, Bayliss heads into his last Test as head coach and while his place in English cricket history is secured by that glittering piece of ICC-branded silverware, that the Ashes urn figuratively remains in Australian hands leaves a slight sense of disappointment. It is one he shares too.
“I’m a traditionalist,” replied Bayliss, when asked about his reputation as a white-ball specialist. “I prefer Test match cricket. I’ve been lucky enough to have been in charge of a few whiteball teams who have won. Winning the World Cup was where England had to make the biggest turnaround in their cricket.
“Test cricket hasn’t gone as well as we would have liked. I think we’ve had more wins than losses but trying to find the depth in our Test ranks, as we have in our one-day team, will be a challenge going forward.”
Bayliss is just about “in the black”, as he puts it, with 26 Test wins, 25 defeats and seven draws. There have been highs along the way – the 2015 Ashes victory at home, as well as away series wins in South Africa (2016-17) and Sri Lanka last winter – but also some heavy defeats on the road. This week at the Oval they must defend a record of having never lost a series at home under his watch.
Ben Stokes bowled in training on Tuesday, meaning Chris Woakes for Craig Overton may be the only change from the defeat at Old Trafford. The tourists, 2-1 up and having retained the Ashes already, can at least be denied a first outright win on English soil since 2001.
When asked if the players owe him one last performance, the reply came that “they owe themselves one”. Bayliss in a nutshell. Because for all the talk of results and records, the man himself has maintained since day one in the job that coaches “have had their day in the sun” and in cricket it is the players who win and lose. The primacy of the captain is very much part of this.
But while this hands-off, playerempowering method has worked with Morgan and the one-day team, the Test side looks in need of more TLC. Joe Root, in particular, has struggled to stamp an identity as captain and, with his batting returns on the slide, there is a sense that the next head coach must take up more of the slack.
For Bayliss, Root remains the right man. “I think he’s getting better all the time. And some of the guys he’s got with him are going be important: people like [vice-captain] Ben Stokes. Right now I can’t see too many others that would suit the job. But those two together can take this team forward.”
Bayliss has witnessed 26 debuts during his tenure and yet not a single batting mainstay has been found. He describes Lancashire’s Haseeb Hameed as the most baffling – even if he, typically, forgot his name – but believes county cricket is not delivering. He fancies there are too many domestic teams, something which will rankle with those who saw him as a selector who rarely attended county games.
And then there is the issue about the message of “positivity” which gets brought up after every blow-out by the Test side. They have been bowled out for under 100 four times and posted only 16 totals over 400 in 110 innings, but Bayliss maintains he is misunderstood in this regard.
He said: “I seemed to spend two or three years talking to you guys about what that meant. It wasn’t hitting fours and sixes. What we’ve attempted to do in the team is play smart cricket. Everyone spoke about doing the hard yards. That’s been an adage the whole time.”
How then does he score his time with England? “I’m a hard marker, so I’ll say five. I gave the guys four, five, six out of 10 for their fielding because I always thought there was room for improvement. If you give them eight, nine or 10, there’s no room for improvement, is there?”
Along with a distrust of modern trappings such as social media – “I’ve got no interest in what you’re doing and I’ve got less interest in you knowing what I’m doing” – this is the kind of home-spun charm that has enamoured Bayliss to his players and yet left people on the outside slightly baffled about his approach.
But whatever one’s take, this oldschool Aussie leaves the role having delivered on his brief of delivering the World Cup. The task now for England is to retrain their sights on the format he loves most yet never quite cracked.