Ashley Giles exits ECB role as part of Ashes fallout

Giles' meeting with Harrison came less than 24 hours after the ECB board convened to examine the national team's performance in Australia and the rebuild job at hand

Ashley Giles' time at the ECB is over, as the fallout from England's ill-fated Ashes tour begins to intensify.

Giles met with ECB chief executive Tom Harrison on Wednesday morning, and the managing director of England men's cricket has stepped down from the governing body following a review into a miserable winter in Australia.

His meeting with Harrison came less than 24 hours after the ECB board convened to examine the national team's performance in Australia and the rebuild job at hand.

Those discussions included a review of Giles' own report into the trip down under, which resulted in a 4-0 defeat and exposed the fragility of English red-ball cricket. 

He will be replaced on an interim basis by Sir Andrew Strauss, whom he replaced in the role in January 2019. Strauss, chair of the ECB's cricket committee, is tasked with 'putting in place arrangements' for the upcoming red-ball tour of West Indies.

^{Ashley Giles, left, and Chris Silverwood could both leave their roles with the ECB}

While in his first year Giles enjoyed men's World Cup success - a project set in motion and championed by Strauss - over the past two years things have not gone to plan.

The men's Test team has struggled for form, losing series against Australia, India, New Zealand and West Indies, and the production line of young red-ball talent making the step up from the domestic system into the national setup has spluttered and stalled.

Giles, who has previously held the white-ball head coach role in the England structure and was Warwickshire's sporting director prior to moving back to the ECB, was responsible for changing the England men's teams chain of command.

He relieved former national selector Ed Smith of his duties last April and handed increased selection powers to head coach Chris Silverwood, effectively giving him the status of a football manager.

Silverwood may well follow Giles in the coming days. 

Addressing his departure, Giles said: "I’d like to thank everyone for the support they’ve given me, particularly all the staff and the players, as well as the board for giving me this opportunity.

"The past couple of years have been incredibly challenging and I’m proud of what we’ve been able to deliver in the toughest of circumstances. This has undoubtedly protected the future of the game in England and Wales.

"Despite these challenges, over the past three years, we have become 50-over World Champions, the top ranked T20I side in the world, we remain the fourth-ranked Test team and our under-19s have just reached the World Cup final for the first time in 24 years. I wish all our players and staff great success for the future."

With a three-Test series against West Indies due to get under way in less than six weeks, it appears likely that an interim coach will be appointed to oversee the tour of the Caribbean, with Alec Stewart - the Surrey director of cricket who has previously been shortlisted for the national head coach job - among the likely candidates.

The England head coach's elevated role of selector could now be up for review, too.

Silverwood had enjoyed total control over selection since Smith's exit, but it is unclear whether any interim coach would enjoy the same authority.

The debate over splitting the England red and white-ball setups in two, and appointing head coaches for each, will also inevitably return in the coming weeks.

^{Giles was responsible for changing the power structure in English men's cricket when Ed Smith departed in April 2021} 

Both Giles and Silverwood are said to feel frustrated by the lot they have drawn over the past two years.

Given the backdrop of the pandemic, and the energy-sapping experience of moving between bio-secure bubbles, the England management believe they have succeeded in completing the core objective of ensuring the vast majority of series have been played.

Only a handful of matches - the ODI leg of the South Africa tour in late 2020, the fifth Test against India at Old Trafford - when the touring side pulled out at the last minute, and trips to Pakistan and Bangladesh - have been cut from the calendar, with England's men playing more international cricket than any other nation during the Covid era.

Paul Collingwood, one of Silverwood's assistant coaches, insisted last week that those players who made the eight-week trip to Australia "should be given medals, not criticism" for fulfilling the tour, given the strains of bubble life. And there should be sympathy for those players and staff who have spent a significant amount of their life in isolation and away from families, restricted in their movements and left to essentially flitter between training and hotel rooms for weeks at a time.

However, results have been poor, and there are question marks over the technical preparation of players for the Test arena.

The performances with the bat in Australia in particular - not once in 10 innings did England manage a score of 300 or more - have caused considerable concern, as have the struggles experienced by many of those coming into the Test setup from the domestic game.