The winter of discontent is finally over (on the field that is), and the people allegedly running the England set up will now have their sights set on appointing a new head coach and plotting the way forward (or backwards, as the case may be) for the England cricket team.
All the stories in the media suggest Ashley Giles already has the job, and with the sacking of Kevin Pietersen effectively ruling out any big name world class coach, it would suggest that they can’t be far off the mark.
The ECB really have backed themselves into a corner here. By sacking Kevin Pietersen they have effectively made the job untenable for any coach who wants carte blanche to pick who he wants, what world class coach in his right mind is going to take on the job when he can’t have final say over what players he can or can’t pick?
There is though, a serious candidate emerging to rival Giles for the job. A man with international coaching experience, and one who wouldn’t have an issue in not picking Pietersen, and Pietersen probably wouldn’t want to play for him either, and that candidate is the Lancashire coach, Peter Moores.
Peter Moores has now overtaken Giles in the betting and finds himself as favourite to be the next England coach. Moores is now a best price of 11/10 to land the job. while Giles has drifted out today on the back of the Michael Carberry piece in the Guardian, and is now a top price of 6/4 with Paddy Power.
I do feel a bit sorry for Giles, and it has been hard to judge him at times over the last year or so. With the fact that limited overs cricket always plays second fiddle to the Test team in England, Giles has rarely had the luxury of being able to pick his strongest team. Look at how many players were rested after the Ashes series last summer.
How can you judge a bloke doing a job with one arm tied behind his back? And I do believe Giles deserves to be cut some slack because of this, but others may rightly argue it is hard to defend him on the back of the Holland result, and now Michael Carberry has come out and criticised Giles man-management skills, none of which can help his case for landing the job.
