adminAndy Flower is to leave his position as England team director after five years in the job. England suffered a 5-0 whitewashing in Australia this month, losing the Ashes in humiliating fashion, and it appears that Flower has now paid the price. However, it remains possible that he could take up another position within the ECB hierarchy.
Despite saying in the aftermath of the Test series that he wanted to continue and oversee England’s rebuilding, according to the Telegraph, Flower was told in a meeting with the new managing director, Paul Downton, that the ECB had decided differently. Downton, who officially begins in the job today, has been conducting a review of England’s disastrous tour, which got worse on Friday with defeat in the T20 series.
Flower, who took over in 2009, led England to the No. 1 ranking in all three formats, winning three consecutive Ashes series and the World Twenty20 during his time in charge. He returned to England after the Ashes and had been expected to begin discussions about the way forward with Downton and Alastair Cook, the Test and one-day captain. Instead, it was expected the ECB would announce he is stepping down yesterday.
The limited-overs coach, Ashley Giles, is currently in charge of the team and England do not play a Test series until June. Indications are that Giles will take on the added responsibility, at least in the short term, with a press conference scheduled for this morning, Australia time. Flower had been due to travel to Sri Lanka and join the Lions tour, running an eye over the next generation of Test players, but that trip has now been cancelled.
Reports of a rift with Kevin Pietersen — Flower denied having made an ultimatum about Pietersen’s involvement in the team but pointedly did not give the player his backing — had clouded the end of a stormy tour of Australia, during which England’s senior players collectively failed to live up to their billing. After the defeat in Melbourne, ESPNcricinfo’s George Dobell, said it was time for Flower to go.
However, the ECB chief executive, David Collier, insisted in January that Flower retained the backing of the governing body until 2015. That support has seemingly evaporated, with Downton making the hardest of calls to begin his tenure as Hug Morris’ successor.
Flower is believed to have been offered a position at the ECB’s National Performance Centre in Loughborough, where he would still exert considerable influence over England’s future success. He relinquished control of England’s limited-overs teams at the start of 2013, due to the considerable demands of touring, and a role in the UK would enable Flower to spend more time with his young family.
As in 2006-07, a 5-0 Test defeat in Australia has precipitated a change in head coach. Flower, like Duncan Fletcher before him, ends on the lowest of notes but his reign will be remembered as one of the most successful in England’s history. Taking over from Peter Moores, after a damaging internal dispute that also cost Pietersen the captaincy, Flower improved England’s fortunes in all three formats — initially winning the 2009 Ashes, then securing a first global limited-overs trophy in the Caribbean, at the 2010 World T20.
An historic 3-1 win in Australia – England’s first Ashes triumph away from home in 24 years – followed, as Flower and the captain, Andrew Strauss, developed a highly efficient, widely regarded partnership. The 4-0 whitewashing of India at home in 2011 took England to No. 1 in the Test rankings, though the next two years produced more fitful success as a slow decay set in.
Defeat against South Africa at home presaged the loss of the top ranking and Strauss’ retirement but, in Cook’s first series as permanent Test captain, England won in India for the first time since 1984-85. A 3-0 victory over Australia last summer gave England their third consecutive Ashes, a feat not achieved in more than 30 years, but they held the urn for only a few months longer, eviscerated by Australia on a debilitating tour.
England’s schedule over the next few months consists of short-form cricket, before Test series against Sri Lanka and India. With changes expected in the playing staff — three debutants were fielded in Sydney — these will be interesting times. — AFP
Online Reporter