Ashley Giles: Kevin Pietersen was "quite right" to ask for time off from England duty

During a Test Match Special commentary stint, England's director of cricket also provided updates on James Anderson's injury comeback and confirmed his faith in Joe Root as England's long-term Test captain

Ashley Giles has said his former teammate Kevin Pietersen was "quite right" to ask the England management for time off to manage his workload during his international career.

Giles, who is now the ECB's managing director of men's cricket, made the remarks during a wide-ranging discussion with Jonathan Agnew and Simon Mann during BBC Test Match Special's coverage of England's Test warmup against New Zealand A in Whangerei last night.

While Pietersen's requests to miss tours caused significant unrest at the time, his 2005 teammate believes that a policy of squad rotation is necessary to allow players to both represent the country to the best of their ability and take part in lucrative domestic leagues around the world.

"He's not as silly as he looks! I wouldn't go as far as calling him a visionary, but yes, he was quite right. The game has moved on at a hell of a pace and continues to," Giles said.

"Part of our strategy has to be to develop a bigger group of players who are capable of playing at this level. We're not going to manage otherwise. We've talked about players but also our management team, and making sure they get time away.

"The schedule brings money, and that's why we're able to sign these big deals with broadcasters, but what it certainly doesn't mean is we play our players into the ground, because we will lose them really quickly.

"It's back to that care point again: we're not going to play our Buttlers and Stokeses in every match. It just isn't fair, and a lot of them have young families now, and that puts a whole different perspective on life."

Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes have each made more than 30 appearances for England since the start of the calendar year in addition to IPL and other domestic commitments

Giles' comments follows separate announcements in the past month that Australia players Glenn Maxwell, Nic Maddinson and Will Pucovski have all requested time away from the national setup in order to take breaks from the game that they hope will help to manage their mental health.

In recent years, several England stars such as Marcus Trescothick, Sarah Taylor and Jonathan Trott have all cited recurring mental health struggles as a primary factor in their decisions to retire from the international game, and Giles confirmed that the ECB is making changes to the team environment in order to better support squad members going forward.

"The mental wellbeing and welfare of our players is crucial, particularly now we've got a group of players who seem to play across all formats," he added.

"It looks like a great lifestyle being on the road and being in hotels, but these guys are serious professionals and spend a lot of time in the gym practising under stress. 

"A picture tells a thousand words, but it's not always the right ones. Even one of our players just being out having a nice meal and a glass of wine could be construed completely differently, and so these guys tend to stay in the hotel a lot, looking after themselves, being very professional.

"We've looked at the role of Mark Saxby. He's our massage therapist, but for years he's been far more than that. He's been a shoulder to cry on at times, a mentor, just a listening ear on the bed when he's massaging – he's taking on a bit more responsibility now on the welfare front. We also have our psychologist David Young with us a lot as well, but more of his work is from a performance side. 

"It's very important to me that even on tour we're just checking on these things. Where are we as a group? Are there any red flags? Anyone we need to worry about? Then we can feed that back to selectors, and so on."

The two-Test series, starting next week, will be the first of Chris Silverwood's tenure

Elsewhere during his commentary stint, Giles was keen to emphasise the promise of the new-look team setup ahead of the two-match Test series in New Zealand, beginning November 21.

The matches will be the first spearheaded by new head coach Chris Silverwood, who previously oversaw Essex's promotion to and subsequent success in the top division of the County Championship before joining the national setup as a full-time bowling coach in 2018.

Silverwood steps into the role vacated after four years by Trevor Bayliss, and Giles believes he can form a formidable partnership with incumbent Test captain and fellow Yorkshireman Joe Root, building primarily towards the next Ashes series in Australia in 2021-22.

"We've talked about [Root] leading in Australia and winning in Australia. We've not said 'maybe, if you get there', you know. We plan for him to be our captain," Giles confirmed.

"Things can change quickly, but myself and Joe sat down even before the Headingley Test this year, and we were looking towards Australia. We talked about how that's probably the holy grail for him.

"Planning for that series realistically was not possible in three weeks [between the World Cup final and the first Test] but we almost got there. With a bit more fair window or a bit more Stokes magic, we might have done the double.

"Whatever people say, there was definitely more focus on our white-ball teams over the last few years. What we're not doing is moving everything towards Test cricket, but we've got to find a balance there because all forms are very important to us.

"I think that also goes through that messaging into the county system. We've seen the build and the increasing quality of county short-form cricket. Now, we're saying we've got this goal: our aim is to win Australia, and we've got to have a system underneath that starts producing better cricketers who can come in and play for England.

James Anderson managed just four overs in this summer's Ashes series before being ruled out with a calf injury

Giles concluded by looking ahead to England's four-Test tour of South Africa later this year, in which England hope to welcome back all-time leading wicket-taker James Anderson from the calf injury that ruled him out of the Ashes series after bowling just four overs in the opening match.

"I've not really spoken to him but the medical team are happy," Giles said. "He's planning on going to Potchefstroom to do some stuff out there and we're hopeful. We think he's on track, which is great.

"In all seriousness, the older you get, when you got these things they can linger longer. I think we felt there was no point in forcing it for this short tour [of New Zealand]. If we needed the extra time, take it, and that's what we've done.

"If you look at this team and you still add the quality of Jimmy Anderson, it'll be interesting to see the pitches we play on in South Africa. I think they'll be green and I think they'll go for a bowler war and take us on."

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