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So England have gone back to the football-style supremo model, with the augmentation of Chris Silverwood. Let’s hope he will be more Alf Ramsey and Bobby Robson, and less Graham Taylor – lovely gent and brilliant club manager that he was – and Steve McClaren (the ‘Wally with the Brolly’).
Silverwood has picked a nice spot to begin his new brief: genteel Hove, seagulls swooping on a sunny-yet-crisp day, the seaside air hopefully a tonic for Ollie Robinson and Dom Bess as they look to impress him (Joe Root doesn’t have a lot to prove).
He has made a good fist of the coach’s job since he started in January 2018, and let’s hope this extra responsibility adds to his enjoyment.
To be honest it was a bit too much for his fellow Yorkshireman Raymond Illingworth when he was given the gig in the mid-90s. He was appointed chairman of selectors in 1993, enjoying a weird cat-and-mouse Yorkshire v Lancashire tussle with captain Mike Atherton.
The dirt-in-the-pocket brouhaha strengthened Illy’s hand, and after the 1994-95 Ashes mismatch, he demanded supremacy. It didn’t last long. A limp tour to South Africa the following winter left him shattered… he was in his early 60s… no wonder Darren Gough saw him recuperating by the swimming pool so often. Illy - who would later pen One-Man Committee, a book about his tenure as the chairman of selectors - has a brilliant cricket mind, but he should have been given the job a decade earlier. At 46 Silverwood at least has age on his side.
Illy made some inspired selections and some weird ones. There was Goughie of course. Craig White ultimately proved himself to be a fine international allrounder. Shaun Udal eventually justified elevation. Other hunches didn’t. Mark Ealham was not a Test allrounder. Steve Rhodes was strangely preferred to Jack Russell at times. Martin McCague’s selection for the ’94-95 Ashes was disastrous. Ditto Richard Blakey for India in 1992-93. For some reason, he didn’t rate Angus Fraser. There were a lot of Yorkies in there, you may have noticed…
Like Illy, Silverwood will now own these decisions. Yes, he will receive technical input from Mo Bobat (the men’s performance director), and the observations of chief scout James Taylor (‘rub a dub dub’) and captain Joe Root, but the buck stops with him now.
Atherton has also raised an issue in The Times: if a player has a problem with his technique and confidence, is he going to be comfortable approaching the head coach (knowing he also decides selections as well)?
I did bump him into him, chatting with Jon Lewis, his bowling coach. Silverwood was not giving interviews but did have a chuckle when I suggested he was going to become an Illy-style supremo.
Silverwood’s elevation has brought an end to the colourful tenure of Ed Smith, surely the most sartorially elegant of all England chairmen of selectors.
He had three years in the role, and the results have been good especially that World Cup triumph of 2019. There have been some left-field Test selections, however: Adil Rashid when he wasn’t playing any red-ball cricket; persisting with Joe Denly, and favouring Jos Buttler over Ben Foakes (or Jonny Bairstow for that matter). His briefings to the media, sculpted like one of his articles, was interesting: his regime seemed to be a fusion of science and hunch. A return to philosophical writing no doubt awaits.
It never felt permanent (he was the appointment of Andrew Strauss), and it’s no surprise Ashley Giles (director of men’s cricket) has acted. His predecessor James Whitaker also seemed to lack the authority that you associate with the role in his four years in the job before Strauss relieved him of his duties.
Geoff Miller before him was a steady hand at the tiller, with only the left-field selection of Darren Pattinson in 2008 lacking logic. Ditto David Graveney, the prince of protocol, before him: a calming presence after Illy, although he had his frustrations with Duncan Fletcher.
Before then it had been a high-profile job, one for legends. Ted Dexter was a lot of fun, talking about Malcolm Devon, facial hair, and the wrong juxtaposition of Venus.
Peter May presided over the maddeningly underachieving 1980s, seemingly playing a version of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’.
He followed on from Alec Bedser. He was a wonderful servant of English cricket but lacked tact. "We were going to sack you anyway," he told Sir Ian Botham, who resigned after the Lord’s Test of 1981. Botham called the selectors ‘gin-soaked dodderers’.
Smith's reign will be remembered for his quirky turns of phrase and indulgence of certain players
They have certainly represented the establishment over the years. The reputation for being locked in at Lord’s, perusing the scorecards in The Times, sweating over whether to have salmon or chicken at lunch, is one that was difficult to shake off.
They shot themselves in the foot by omitting John Snow from the Ashes tour of 1974-75, for his barging of Sunil Gavaskar at Lord’s (worst place to have done it) in 1971.
No one wanted to own up to the omission of Basil D’Oliveria in 1969-70.
Geoff Boycott was dropped after scoring a double-century against India in 1967 because it was too slow by Doug Insole. Boycott adapted that surname to something rude, which was amusing.
Fred Trueman didn’t go to Australia in 1954/55 because of his carousing in the Caribbean the winter before (luckily England had Frank Tyson).
An editor of The Cricketer has fulfilled the role (Sir Pelham Warner), and the first chairman, Lord Hawke, picked himself as captain in 1880.
Safe to assume Silverwood won’t be doing that, but some of his decisions will be lauded, and others slammed. That’s the job.
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