Andy Flower (centre) has been the coach of England before also.Image Credit source: Getty Images
Brendon McCullum’s journey as the Test coach of the England cricket team has ended. After the home Test series defeat at the hands of New Zealand just a few days ago, the England Cricket Board (ECB) removed McCullum from this role. However, he will remain the coach in ODI and T20. Now the English Board faces the challenge of appointing a new Test coach. For this, the ECB is keeping its eyes on Andy Flower, head coach of the current Indian Premier League (IPL) champion Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
The English board took this big decision the very next day after registering a 4-0 win in the T20 series against India under the coaching of McCullum. With the removal of McCullum from Test coaching, England do not currently have many options for this role. In such a situation, the English board is hoping to include Flower again, who was associated with the team earlier also and had achieved a lot of success.
In a report by British news website iPaper, it has been claimed that the ECB is once again ready to make every effort to hire Andy Flower. This legendary Zimbabwean wicketkeeper-batsman has achieved success on almost every front in his coaching career spanning over a decade and a half. Currently he is the head coach of RCB, where his 3-year contract ended with this season.
There is every possibility that after making RCB the champion for two consecutive times, he can remain associated with the team in future also. In such a situation, will the England Cricket Board be able to make him a Test coach? This is a big question. One reason for this is that Flower has already said that he does not want to be the full time coach of any country. Only through this, he is able to play the role of coach of different teams throughout the year in tournaments like IPL, The Hundred and Abu Dhabi T10 League.
However, will he be ready for this only if he is made the coach of the Test team? Or will the English Board be able to reach a compromise with his remaining associated with the IPL franchise and making him the coach of the Test team? Answers to these questions will be found in the coming days. Let us tell you that at present Flower’s contract with RCB has not been renewed. In such a situation, there may be a tussle between RCB and ECB regarding flowers.
Flower had previously been the team director and head coach of England from 2009 to 2014-15. It was under his coaching that England won an ICC tournament in the form of T20 World Cup for the first time in 2010. During his tenure, England also became the number-1 ranked team in Tests, where they won the Ashes for England after years in Australia and captured 3 consecutive Ashes series. Not only this, in 2011-12, during his tenure, England came to India and won the Test series, while at home itself it defeated Team India 4-0.
