How do England fix this?

… Is the question on everyone’s lips approximately every time the England men’s Test side gets hammered abroad, but this time it feels different. Worse.

The main accusation levelled at the ECB is that they prioritise the white ball game and this is why the test side is so forlorn. There is some truth to this, given the amount of players who are expected to perform in both sides, and the preference given to the shorter forms in the domestic calendar.

This is all reductive however, and ignores the main issue.

England are a relative cricketing superpower. Most boards apart from India, would kill for the financial power of the ECB.

England have the resources to be good at both white-ball and red-ball cricket, they are not bad at test cricket because of some sort of lack of funding, or because Phil Salt is good at T20 cricket, it is the decisions and leadership that take them down the wrong road at every available turn.

Coaching

Chris Silverwood should never have been appointed as the head coach of the national side, a fact made worse by the knowledge that Gary Kirsten was considered for the role, but did not interview as well, and wanted the red-ball and white ball coaching roles separated.

It seems perfectly clear to me that, since he is clearly still interested in the role, England should do whatever they can to bring Gary Kirsten to the England role. Kirsten is one of the most coveted coaches in the world game, and is not afraid to make moves that might ruffle some feathers in the playing group.

Kirsten led South Africa and India to the number one spot in the Test match rankings in the space of three years, and there are no prizes for guessing which coach Dawid Malan visits every winter in South Africa, coinciding with his resurgence and tighter technique.

If England are to learn how to construct a Test match innings, then there are worse mentors than the owner of the second longest Test innings in history, and 21 centuries.

Given that Kirsten would not want white-ball responsibilities as well, our hypothetical revamp needs a new coach to have the slightly easier role of inheriting the best limited overs depth in the world.

The stand out choices, if we were to seize the money that the ECB executives pocketed as bonuses and throw it at the best available coaches, would look something like this:

Red-ball head coach – Gary Kirsten

White-ball head coach – Mahela Jayawardene

Batting coach – Ricky Ponting

This is a fantasy pick because A) it assumes that the ECB have the means to hire three super-coaches at the same time and split their roles, and B) that Ponting would be remotely interested in helping the useless poms become less useless.

Mahela Jayawardene is one of the greats of the modern game, and one of the best coaches around. In white ball cricket, Jayawardene coaches Mumbai Indians in the IPL and the Southern Brave in The Hundred, three IPL titles since 2017 and victory in the inaugural Hundred show Jayawardene’s prowess in his short coaching career to date.

Ponting’s credentials need very little explanation but as the second highest run scorer of all-time in the longest form, captain of one of the best sides to take the field, and a broadcaster capable of forensically dissecting batters’ techniques on air, he is overqualified for the position of batting coach.

If our fantasy picks do not materialise, then England could do worse than Paul Collingwood, who seems like a ready made coach. As a cricketer he was tough, disciplined and played across several eras of county and international cricket, this experience combined with his time among the national coaching staff, could be a real asset to the 50 and 20 over sides.

National selector and CEO

The role of national selector was abolished last year, to see Chris Silverwood take on this role in conjunction with his role as head coach, and it is clear that it has not worked.

How is the head coach supposed to gain a good idea of the players on the fringes of selection if he is never free to watch domestic fixtures? This led to the same old selections being trotted out series after series, see – the last three years of Jonny Bairstow’s Test career, and the entire 2021 Ashes squad.

Ed Smith was overall, a net positive as national selector, his picks often raised eyebrows but they were often justified, think Sam Curran and Jos Buttler against India, Adil Rashid’s recall, and Dom Bess in South Africa.

Whilst going back to Ed Smith may not be the right option, it is clear that there is a need for a specialist selectors scouting team.

As to who this should be, I’m not sure, but how hard would it be to find someone with an in-depth knowledge of the domestic game and conditions across the country?

As for Tom Harrison and the rest of the ECB powers that be, it could not be plainer that they are not fit for purpose.

Those at the top are perfectly happy running most aspects of the game into the ground, whilst pocketing millions in bonuses, after laying off a multitude of staff last year.

Andrew Strauss has both experience leading one of England’s greatest sides of all time, experience on a board room level, and speaks eloquently and impressively on behalf of the Ruth Strauss Foundation.

Strauss knows the English game inside out and some (putting it mildly) playing experience at the highest levels of the ECB would not go amiss.

Captaincy

Joe Root has had a bizarre year, with the bat it has been prolific, generational even, in a leadership capacity it has been a disaster.

Root has never been an overly proactive captain, often fluctuating between capable and clueless in the same Test match, and his failings have been laid bare in a year where there have been no performances outside of his own with the bat to hide behind.

Aside from odd tactical decisions here or there, which are signs of a mediocre tactician, who can lead in other ways, such as Virat Kohli, there have been much larger failings.

Think of the debacle in the second India Test in the summer, with atrocious field placings and panicked, emotional bowling plans allowing Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah to make runs, followed by a Test match losing collapse.

Think of the decision to bat first in a first Ashes Test which they knew was going to be rain affected, setting the tone of a series marked by dodgy team selection and tactics.

Then there is the mismanagement of Jofra Archer, bowled into the ground across his first year as a Test cricketer, and yet to recover. As captain, Root had a shiny new toy and he broke it. Now we will be lucky to see Archer ever at his best again in whites.

Finally there is his almost radio silence over the toxic, appalling Yorkshire racism scandal of last year. It has been made clear that Root is one of the good guys of English cricket, but his meekness in handling a situation and institution that should have been condemned in the strongest terms was poor. Some may say that it isn’t his place to talk about things that do not involve him, but as Yorkshire’s favourite child, and the most important cricketer in England by rank, it is hard to see how this could involve him more.

If the reason you are touted to retain a post is that there are no other suitable options, then there is an issue.

I would not make any other member of this side, other than perhaps Jos Buttler, captain, Rory Burns is looking less and less like a Test cricketer with each innings, Stuart Broad is nearing the end of his career and barely plays, and Ben Stokes is too important in all facets of the game to be given something else to do.

As far as county options to pull from, the only players who have enough county capital and captaincy credentials behind them to be worthy of a punt are James Vince, Tom Abell and Ben Brown.

Of these three, Vince has a poor international record, Abell has a modest first-class record and Brown is 33, has just been moved on by Sussex to make way for Mohammad Rizwan and has never been considered for even England Lions honours before.

The point here is that there are some simple fixes in the England set-up, and some more complicated ones.

The coaching issue should never really have been such. The ‘hire a poor coach instead of the world class one who wanted the job’ move has not proved to be a great strategy overall. This has a pretty simple remedy.

Since I have absolutely no clue about decisions made on a board level in this institution I can’t pass judgement on how simple-a-fix the position of CEO is, I would wager that it is not as easy.

The captaincy is a complex issue, England do not want to pick a captain and then discover that the team balance is off, and they do not want to pick a balanced eleven around Joe Root as skipper, only for poor captaincy to cost them.

I do genuinely believe that a lot of the immediate problems in the Test side could be partly remedied by the recruitment of a competent coach, but the other issues are much more institutional and have long term implications.