England's Summer of Cricket against Sri Lanka and India

[Shaggy]

Yep, convenient that isn't it.

[RichC]

Yup.

Stinks to high heaven tbh.

[captainfog]

Peter ****ing Moores!!! what a joke!

[dww]

Everyone barring KP and people in here seem to think really highly of Moores. Why the antipathy? I have no detailed knowledge of non-international cricket, is it all because of the dodgy time he had last time (whilst KP was in the squad)?

[Shaggy]

Lancashire fans love him, that's for sure. Just strikes me as a backward step, a 'safe bet' and someone who definitely won't entertain a Pietersen comeback.

[Chazza]

England cricket team's new head coach is Peter Moores with current Sri Lanka coach Paul Farbrace as his assistant

Peter Moores will take over as the new head England head coach with Paul Farbrace, the current coach of Sri Lanka, named as his assistant.

Peter Moores will take over as the new head coach of the England team completing a remarkable return to the job he left in 2008 when he was sacked alongside Kevin Pietersen.

Paul Farbrace, the current coach of Sri Lanka, will be named as his assistant leaving Ashley Giles out of a job.

Moores and Farbrace will both appear at a press conference at Lord’s today after leaving their current positions with immediate effect.

Moores has beaten off competition from Giles, Trevor Bayliss and two county coaches, Mick Newell and Mark Robinson, to be handed a second chance to lead England. He will be in charge of the side in all three formats of the game after the England & Wales Cricket Board decided to unite the jobs under one coach after the Ashes whitewash.

Reappointing Moores is a gamble by Paul Downton, the managing director of the England team, and it is almost an unprecedented step in top level sport for a coach who has failed in a top job to be given a second chance.

Moores lost the job with England due to poor results and doubts over whether his methods worked with international cricketers. He has since rebuilt his career with Lancashire, leading them to a longed for championship title, but has no further experience at international level.

But this time circumstances are different to when he took over from Duncan Fletcher in 2007. He inherits an England team in flux with few senior players sure of their places in the team and a captain in Alastair Cook who is struggling to adapt to the pressures of the job.

The hands on style of coaching from Moores may help Cook free his mind to concentrate on recapturing his form which could lead to an improvement in his captaincy that was widely criticised in the winter.

Moores has always maintained strong support among senior figures at Lord’s and emerged almost immediately as a front-runner. He was highly rated by Flower, who will have been consulted on his reappointment.
The fortunes of both men have now turned full circle with Moores having appointed Flower to his backroom staff, and now takes over from him as head coach.

Moores leaves his job at Lancashire perhaps creating a vacancy for Giles who will be desperately disappointed to have missed out on the England job. Giles was groomed to replace Flower when he was appointed one-day coach at the end of 2012. He was appointed to lead the side to the 2015 World Cup but has found himself cut adrift after a tortured winter for England.

Flower’s surprise departure in January left Giles with a chance to prove his credentials on a short tour to the West Indies and at the World Twenty20. Results in the Caribbean were mixed with victory in the one-day series followed by defeat in the Twenty20s.

England’s exit in the group phase of the World Twenty20 in Bangladesh was not unexpected but the hammering in their final match to Holland was the final blow of the winter.

Giles can count himself unlucky. He rarely had control of a full strength side due to England’s rotation policy which protected players crucial to the Test team, and would have planned for the World Twenty20 with Graeme Swann and Pietersen in the side.

For Farbrace his appointment moved very quickly this week once he was certain he was ready to give up his role with Sri Lanka. He met with Downton on Thursday and extricated himself from his two year deal with Sri Lanka Cricket quicker than expected.

He is widely respected in the county game after stints coaching at Yorkshire and Kent. He was assistant coach to Bayliss, the 51 year-old Australia who was also in the frame for the job to replace Flower, when the pair worked for Sri Lanka and survived the terrorist attack on the team bus in 2009.

One of Moores’s first tasks will be to form the rest of his backroom team with the futures of Graham Gooch, the batting coach, and others high on the agenda.

Robinson, the coach of Sussex, is likely to be involved in the new set up with more appointments to lead the Lions in the winter. For Newell to have a chance of the England job in the future he will have to leave Nottinghamshire and gain international experience, possibly following Farbrace’s lead by coaching a side such as Sri Lanka.

Moores’ first match in charge will be against Scotland in Aberdeen on May 9 before a two match Test series against Sri Lanka followed by a five Test series with India.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/10775544/England-cricket-teams-new-head-coach-is-Peter-Moores-with-current-Sri-Lanka-coach-Paul-Farbrace-as-his-assistant.html

[Shaggy]

Isn't Moores just like Flower in terms of being a stats disciple, cricket by numbers etc?

[Alex]

Just because that didn't work for Flower in the last year doesnt mean it wont work at all.

It proved pretty effective against most sides in the years before. But a combination of things clearly messed that up.

Would like a bit more intuition in the play sometimes, especially from Cook. But the stats approach worked, so I see no reason to change.

[Shaggy]

It worked then, and for a while, but I think we need to make a break from cricket by numbers/captaining by proxy. The players seem jaded and worn. Maybe Moores will change things anyway but as a Flower man he is too much associated with the old regime and IMO it doesn't represent enough of a change. Of course Flower is still in the picture so you wonder if in fact anything will change.

[dww]

I wonder whether the changes need to be revolutionary. Moores has a reputation as a hands on coach and it seems likely would have a different man management style. A lot that seemed to go wrong appeared to be about the group dynamic as well as the too rigid adherence to set ways of playing. Even a small tweak to the latter might make a big difference.

[RichC]

Sounds like no way back at all for KP

Based off comments in that PC from Downton

[dww]

I think once you have made a decision like that you have to stick with it strongly, at least until you have established the basis of what you want to do in future.

[RichC]

Perhaps but going back to a guy that has already been in charge of the England set up and essentially failed is IMO taking a step backwards rather than looking to the future.

His record the first time around is average to say the least

England coach, April 2007 - January 2009
Test record as coach - played 22, won eight, lost six, drawn eight
ODI record as coach - played 36, won 14, lost 18, tied one, no-result three
T20 record as coach - played 10, won five, lost five

[dww]

They must either think a/ the problem lay elsewhere then (i.e. at least in part with KP) or b/ that he has improved. I can see the looking backwards argument but I really didn't feel any of the other candidates looked particularly exciting either. Perhaps he is just the best of an average bunch who wanted the job.

[RichC]

If that's the case it's pretty depressing, I find it hard to believe there weren't better candidates outside of these isles we could have looked at.

For me it's about keeping the status quo and hoping it might all suddenly improve.