Chris Silverwood makes all the right noises as he prepares to lead England's A-Team

HUW TURBERVILL: The former Essex County Championship winner will be hoping to channel Col. John "Hannibal" Smith in improving the longer he is in the job

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Pride and patriotism were the two things that came out of Chris Silverwood’s coronation as England’s new head coach.

Whatever anyone thinks about the treatment of the hitherto favourite for the role Gary Kirsten – and Mike Atherton had his say about it all in The Times – there is no way the South African could have matched Silverwood in those categories.

The Pontefractian (possibly a made-up word) looked, to use a time-honoured sporting cliché, as pleased as punch. “I am immensely proud and very humble,” he said.

With neatly combed hair and a softy spoken manner, he came across as likeable and decent. He said, “He wants England to win with a bit of class”. Who can argue with that?

Ashley Giles, his boss, said Silverwood leading Essex to the County Championship in 2017 was an “astonishing achievement” – and perhaps another one is needed to win back the Ashes in two winters’ time; and/or defend the 50-over World Cup in India in 2023 for that matter.

NOW READ: The pride of Chris Silverwood: England's new head coach steps into role of a lifetime

The most welcome development from where I was sitting was Silverwood suggesting that his Test batters will buckle down a bit more than they did under Trevor Bayliss.

"I certainly think it needs work moving forward," he said. "One of the things we’ll be looking at is a batting group that can bat for a long period of times, stack runs up and put pressure on.

"Yes, it sounds a little bit old-fashioned, but I think we have to start recognising that we actually need to have a look at that and make sure that we’ve got the right people in the right places to achieve that as well."

Giles added that Silverwood had character, values, and he’s a winner. Silverwood believes he has strong relationships with Joe Root and Eoin Morgan, the players and his backroom staff. And as an aficionado of county cricket, he will already be more endeared to our readers than Bayliss was. A key quote from Giles was that “at times the England team has worked as a bit of an island [from the counties]... an overseas coach hasn’t always helped that".

Intriguingly Giles also hinted that batting coach Graham Thorpe could fill in for Silverwood on Test duty, with Paul Collingwood on T20… so will that mean the new bowling coach’s other specific area of expertise will be the 50-over game?

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Paul Collingwood will be among Chris Silverwood's chief lieutenants 

Amusingly Giles also likened Silverwood to Hannibal Smith, leader of The A-Team, with three affiliates working under him.

That was Mr T (Thorpe?), Murdoch (err, not sure how pleased Collingwood will be about that), and Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck… the new bowling coach? Should we, therefore, expect somebody who is rather good-looking and charming? Shane Bond?

Giles omitted Amy ‘Triple A’ Allen sadly; she was officially in The A-Team, even if not everyone recalls her. She was a journalist, so maybe that role will be played by media liaison officer (aka head of performance communications), Danny Reuben.

Will blowing a lot of things up with zero fatalities be part of Silverwood’s brief? We shall see.

Perhaps as important as anything, Silverwood revealed he was a subscriber to The Cricketer. Good man.

Results will dictate if he becomes the next Duncan Fletcher or Andy Flower, or Peter Moores, but this was a good start.

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