Ashes: Chris Silverwood insists he wants to stay on as England coach after Australia humiliation

Chris Silverwood has insisted he wants to stay on as England head coach, despite his team’s 4-0 Ashes drubbing – but admitted he could have ‘shown my teeth more’ to the players amid accusations of dressing-room cosiness.

Since beating India at Chennai last February, England have lost 10 Tests out of 14 and won only one – their worst sequence for 25 years. That has left Silverwood’s fate dependent both on the post-series report by team managing director Ashley Giles, and the views of ECB chief executive Tom Harrison and other members of the performance cricket committee, chaired by Andrew Strauss.

Harrison is believed to have been unimpressed by what he has found during his three weeks in Australia, with England’s worst Ashes batting display since the 1950s compounded by a loss of confidence among the players in Silverwood’s ability, and poor levels of communication. 

Chris Silverwood wants to stay on as England head coach, despite his team’s Ashes drubbing

There has been a loss of confidence among the England players in Silverwood’s ability

Before one Test, the coach sat down to tell a player he had been dropped, only for the player to say he had already read of his demise in a newspaper.

There have been concerns, too, about the amount of drink consumed – by players and coaching staff alike – though that has been softened by sympathy for the amount of time spent in bubbles during the pandemic.

But Silverwood is adamant that, with the help of a reformed domestic structure that places more emphasis on the red-ball game, he can help turn England’s fortunes around.

‘My job is going to be under scrutiny,’ he said. ‘But I would love to help effect those changes within the county structures, and I would like to put some of this right. I think I’m a good coach and I would love to be given that opportunity, but there are certain things that are out of my hands at the moment.’

With less than six weeks before England fly to the Caribbean for a three-Test series, Harrison and Strauss have little time to make their recommendations to the ECB board.

His fate is dependent on the post-series report by team managing director Ashley Giles (right)

The views of ECB chief executive Tom Harrison (right) and other members of the performance cricket committee, chaired by Andrew Strauss (left), will also play a part in Silverwood’s future 

But whoever emerges as head coach may find their powers diluted, with Silverwood struggling to balance day-to-day coaching with the dual demands of the Test and white-ball teams, plus the role of chief selector. 

Assistant coaches such as Paul Collingwood, who is in charge of the T20 team’s forthcoming tour of the Caribbean, and Graham Thorpe may be asked to take on greater responsibility.

The hierarchy must also decide whether a combination of Root and Silverwood lacks a bad-cop figure to tell the players home truths, with Root admitting after England lost at Hobart inside three days that ‘there might be times where we need to get a little bit harder’.

Silverwood said: ‘With the situation we’ve been living in, I try to work through things with them, rather than shout or growl.

The hierarchy must decide whether a Joe Root-Silverwood pairing lacks a bad-cop figure

Root admitted the leadership group may have to be a ‘little bit harder’ after the fifth Test defeat

‘But there will be aspects I’ve got to reflect on, because I’m not a finished article as a coach and I want to get better all the time. I’m not afraid to show my teeth, but you sometimes wonder in hindsight whether I should do it more. But then does it make it less effective? I don’t know.’

The farcical conclusion to the fifth Test on Sunday may not work in his favour. England’s last five wickets fell amid a flurry of slogs, misjudgements and apathy, typified by last man Ollie Robinson, who backed away first ball to Pat Cummins and lost his middle stump.

Silverwood, though, put the surrender down to tiredness. ‘I believe they’re still playing for us,’ he said. ‘I think what we saw was players that are tired.

‘It was hard to watch. At times, you were thinking, just get stuck in. Let’s show that fight, but we didn’t have that. And there is no point saying we did, because we clearly didn’t. We’ve got to get to the bottom of why that is, and try to make a difference.’

Ollie Robinson was the last batsman dismissed, losing his middle stump to Pat Cummins

Australia sealed a 4-0 Ashes triumph after England collapsed once again with the bat in Hobart

For the time being, he said he would ‘start planning for the West Indies’. And that means considering options outside the 16 who played at least one Test in Australia, where perhaps only Mark Wood and to a lesser extent Zak Crawley emerged with their reputations enhanced.

‘We’ve certainly got to look at what is out there as well,’ said Silverwood. ‘One of the things I will be doing is speaking to the scouts, the performance director. What have we got out there? Do we need to make changes?’

Whether he is the one who will still be asking those questions in a few weeks’ time is now a matter for his bosses.

PAUL NEWMAN: Rip it all up and start again… it’s time for Chris Silverwood, Ashley Giles AND Joe Root to relinquish power after England’s Ashes humiliation, with Gary Kirsten, Andrew Strauss and Ben Stokes waiting in the wings 

This has to be rock bottom. They cannot go any lower. This has to be the moment England draw a line in the sand and really mean it when they say they will prioritise Test cricket.

And that means doing much, much more than having the audacity to call for a red-ball reset, as Tom Harrison did last week, while trousering a big fat bonus for undermining Test cricket by creating an unnecessary and unwanted new format in the Hundred.

It has been done before. As Alastair Cook said on BT after what is surely the worst of all away Ashes debacles, England knew they could not sink any lower when they were demolished for 51 by West Indies in Jamaica in 2009. They vowed to put things right and two years later were crowned the best Test team in the world.

England’s shambolic collapse to a 4-0 Ashes series defeat leaves Root’s captaincy at risk

Go back further and Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher came together in 1999 with England ranked the worst of the lot and began the recovery that was to culminate with the fabled 2005 Ashes victory under Fletcher and Michael Vaughan.

How England could do with a captain like Hussain now to drag them off the floor with his force of personality. And how they could do with a coach like Fletcher with a steely vision of where they need to go and the technical acumen and drive to take them there.

It is all very well blaming the system and clearly a domestic game that has been far too in thrall to the white ball is the fundamental reason for England’s shocking demise in Australia.

There is zero trust in a rudderless ECB led by a dead chief executive walking in Harrison and without a chairman at all. 

Australia finished England off in the fifth and final Test with an easy 146-run win at Hobart 

The board have been asleep at the wheel while England are facing up to a year when they will play more international cricket than ever before with their players in the mood to rebel against any further Covid bubbles and restrictions.

But a broken system does not excuse those who have been responsible for this Ashes being even worse than the nadirs of 2006-07 which was to cost Fletcher his job, and that of 2013-14 that was to do for another coach of real substance in Andy Flower.

That means, for all his desire to carry on and the lack of viable alternatives, Joe Root’s captaincy race is run, Chris Silverwood has to pay the price for being given too much responsibility for coaching and selection and Ashley Giles must go for giving Silverwood that hospital pass in the first place.

Root cannot survive simply because there is no one else. He has overseen three Ashes without success after admitting before this series that his legacy would be judged by this one. 

And if anything he is getting worse tactically. He needs to go back to the ranks and concentrate on restoring the very high batting levels misplaced during this series.

The one outstanding candidate to replace Root is Ben Stokes. For all the reservations many, including this observer, have about overloading such an important player, Stokes could do the job with one important proviso — he would have to give up Twenty20 cricket, the one format where he has never fulfilled his potential.

Silverwood surely must be forced out after failing to perform with selection duties

Giles was the man who handed those responsibilities to Silverwood, and must go 

That includes the IPL. If England’s top players are serious about rescuing Test cricket, they must give up a franchise tournament that in itself undermines our first-class cricket by taking players away from the red-ball game at the start of each season.

There should be a new coach in place by the time England play their next Test in Antigua in March too. It might not have gone down well within the team when Gary Kirsten made such an obvious play for the job while Silverwood was still in situ, but the South African disciple of Fletcher is the obvious man for the Test job. 

And Paul Collingwood can take charge of a white-ball machine that shows no signs of malfunctioning under captain Eoin Morgan.

It was Andrew Strauss who put the white-ball reset in motion after an embarrassing 2015 World Cup before leaving his post of team director to prioritise his family after the death of his wife Ruth.

That move led to the huge success of the 2019 World Cup but it has gone too far now and Strauss, who has made a part-time return to administration as chair of the ECB cricket committee, is the best person to redress the balance. He should return to his old job at Giles’ expense or even replace Harrison and run the whole thing.

England are missing the leadership of a character like Nasser Hussain to lead them into Tests

And Strauss could work with a new ECB chair in Surrey chairman Richard Thompson, a man with the expertise, dynamism, love of cricket and business acumen to lead the governing body in their moment of greatest need. He has the support of the counties too after his success at the helm of the biggest county of them all.

Root articulated what has to happen in the short term to ignite that red-ball reset while at his lowest ebb in the aftermath of the pitiful Hobart batting collapse and a three-day last Test defeat.

‘What incentives are there in the County Championship to open the batting?’ he asked. ‘What incentives are there to be a spinner or to bowl fast? Anyone coming into Test cricket is doing it in spite of county cricket, not because of it.

‘How do we provide those incentives? We could produce better wickets, hopefully by playing at a better time of year. We could flatten the seam on the ball, maybe by giving our seamers a Kookaburra to work with. 

‘That would nullify running in and bowling at 70 miles per hour while encouraging bowlers to create new angles and find different ways to take wickets. And give spinners the chance to bowl in the first half of the season.

Root understands the needs for changes but it looks like he won’t be the one making them

‘Then we could double the batting points in a Championship game and incentivise first innings leads above 400. When do our young batters ever go out under the pressure of replying to 450-500? When do they have to save a match in spinning conditions?

‘There are lots of things we could change quite quickly but for now it’s how we react to this Ashes. Can we use this experience when we’re hurting to grow and come back as better players?’

They are all valid points and questions. But they are ones for Root’s successor to address. Along with a new coach, team director and ECB hierarchy.

This really does have to be the time for action. This has to be when England really do rip everything up and start again.