Andrew Strauss Is The Perfect Man To Revive England’s Red-Ball Game- Trevor Bayliss
Published - 19 Jan 2022, 05:19 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 01:03 AM
Former England head coach Trevor Bayliss has picked former captain Andrew Strauss as the man who can revive the country’s red-ball fortunes in the aftermath of the 0-4 Ashes series 2021-22 drubbing at the hands of the Australian team down under. Stauss was the man behind England’s transformation into world-beaters in white-ball formats.
The England team was seen without a fight barring the fourth Test match in Sydney, as they were battered and humiliated with increasing levels for the remainder of the four-Test matches. In Brisbane, England lost the series opener by 9 wickets. In a D/N Adelaide Test, Australia routed England by a massive 275 runs.
The humiliation was at its peak in Melbourne when England was bowled out for 68 and lost the Boxing Day Test by an innings and 14 runs when Australia had barely managed 276 runs in their only innings. James Anderson and Stuart Broad batted out nervous four overs to secure a draw at SCG.
The story continued in Hobart, in the second D/N Test, as England was thrashed by 146 runs suffering a collapse in the fourth innings which saw them going from 68/0 to 124 all-out.
I Believe He Would Be The Perfect Man To Revive England’s Red-Ball Game Now: Trevor Bayliss On Andrew Strauss
Former England head coach Trevor Bayliss picked out Andrew Strauss to take up the reset project after the Ashes 2021-22 humiliation citing the way he transformed the team’s white-ball cricket post the 2015 World Cup debacle, leading to the team becoming a giant in ODIs and T20Is.
“Something desperately needed to change and England’s commitment to improving after years of under-achievement led to winning the World Cup of 2019 and formidable 50-over and T20 international sides.
“The architect of that change, of course, was Andrew Strauss as then team director. I believe he would be the perfect man to do the same for England’s red-ball game now, if his personal situation is such that he can devote the time to it,” wrote Bayliss for Daily Mail.
Bayliss was employed as head coach of the England team that year and it resulted in England reaching the final of the Men’s T20 World Cup in 2016, semi-finals of Champions Trophy 2017, and winning the Men’s Cricket World Cup on home soil in 2019.
“I thoroughly enjoyed working with Straussy. He is an intelligent man with an innate knowledge of the game and has wide-ranging experiences as a player, England captain and then an administrator.
“England will be hard-pressed to find anyone better than him to pull this task off and get the team back on the right road in Test cricket. When I was with England, Strauss had this ability after a meeting to perfectly summarise what we were thinking and what needed to be done. Everyone understood his message,” opined Bayliss.
Currently, Strauss serves as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) cricket committee and had to quit as England’s director of cricket in 2018 to look after his wife, Ruth, who died of lung cancer later in the year in December.
