England’s Managing Director of Men’s Cricket, Rob Key, has confirmed he is in “no hurry” to appoint a National Selector, but still plans to reinstate the role.
The role of National Selector was made redundant last year when Key’s predecessor, Ashley Giles, removed Ed Smth from the role.
Key has been determined to bring the role back since starting his role in April. He has appointed Brendon McCullum and Matthew Mott as Test and white-ball coaches respectively, as well as handing the captaincy of the two setups to Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler.
Next up is the selector’s role, which Key is currently filling on an interim basis. He says he is happy to wait to find the right person for the job. It is unlikely that Key will begin recruiting for the role before the end of the summer.
“I suppose the selector’s the next one,” said Key. “But that to me has always been about the person, not the structure.
“I’m doing that role at the moment, but how it works is the coach and captain and myself, we have a vote – if it’s needed, if we can’t agree on something.
“It’s actually the lower sides, the bets for the future, it’s watching county cricket, it’s working out who the next best bowlers and spinners are going to be. That’s where you earn your corn. I’ve got to work out how to do that.
“At the start I wasn’t in a hurry because there’d been a lot of change and new personnel, so I didn’t want to bring another person in who was new to the environment. It takes time to settle in a bit, and we can start looking at that.”
Key also plans to further split the coaching setups, with specialist coaches also being split down format lines under McCullum and Mott.
“Because we’ve had two new head coaches who can’t do both, the support staff have been ducking in and out of red and white ball,” he said.
“They have a hell of a lot on. At some point, we will have to have a look and make sure we have two groups of coaches. That means more people not less.
“That will come towards the end of the summer, then we will have to work out where everyone is and how they will go from there. It’s a debate, it’s a conversation really because these guys didn’t necessarily get in it to be red or white ball coaches only, they got in to be coaches of all formats. We will have to work out who fits best in what.”
