Former England captain Michael Vaughan has backed Stephen Fleming’s appointment as the men’s team Test coach, but added that he may not have a captain like MS Dhoni to work with in the setup.
Fleming, who was appointed the Test coach on Thursday, formed a successful coach-captain partnership with Dhoni and helped Chennai Super Kings win five IPL titles and two Champions League titles over 17 years.
“We’re in a bit of a mess, but I’m sure Fleming will get it right. I’m sure he’ll get the team performing,” Vaughan wrote in his Telegraph column.
“Fleming is very well respected, renowned for being a very good manager and tactician. I’ve seen him at the IPL and one of the problems he might discover in English cricket is that we do not have an MS Dhoni to be his captain. Dhoni ran the ship at CSK (Chennai Super Kings), and Fleming had some really good backroom coaches as well. Eric Simons was a wonderful bowling coach for him, a master at getting the white ball to swing. His team was built around skill with the ball, not express pace. I wonder whether that is an indication that the skill side of bowling will come back into the England Test team rather than just out-and-out speed,” he added.
Vaughan also felt that Fleming should have ideally taken over from the series against Pakistan starting on August 19 instead of starting in the winter tour of South Africa in December.
“Stephen Fleming is a good appointment as England’s Test coach, but he should be in position for the start of the Pakistan series, rather than taking over fully for the South Africa tour in December. By starting later, it means Fleming will have coached England for just one home Test – against Bangladesh next summer – before the Ashes series.”
“Fleming has been off since late May, when the IPL finished, and coaching for the Pakistan series would only take up a month or so. There is then another decent chunk of time off before the South Africa tour in December. It does not look too onerous to me.”
“It is not necessarily about winning the Pakistan series; it is more information gathering. It is about the small details, gaining experience of going to grounds such as Edgbaston – which hosts an Ashes Test – getting to know people involved in English cricket and fact-finding about our game by meeting the county coaches who can help him,” he added.
The 2005 Ashes-winning captain also felt that Fleming was the right man for the job as he was one of the few who could work in tandem with white-ball coach and fellow Kiwi Brendon McCullum.
“The key to this appointment was always going to be the relationship the coach of the Test team has with McCullum, who is clearly still a major operator in English cricket.”
“It was always going to be a tricky combination to get right. If you brought in someone who knew nothing about Baz, or on a completely different wavelength, then that would be a real problem. And maybe that’s been the stumbling block for the others who were approached for this role.”