82
(^) Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019
Strauss lost the
right to lecture
counties when
he gave England
job to an Aussie
MARTIN
SAMUEL
CHIEF SPORTS WRITER
League clubs looking abroad. And
what of Bayliss’s successor? The
man now in Strauss’s shoes is
offering no guarantees.
‘It would be nice to have an
English coach, but we’ve got to
get the best bloke,’ said Ashley
Giles. Chris Silverwood, one of
Bayliss’s current assistants, and
born in Yorkshire, is under
consideration, perhaps Paul
Collingwood, too.
This time, however, it is fair to
say the ECB owe English coaches
one. Through Strauss, they
sent out the message that
graduates of the domestic
game were not suited to the
highest level.
They can hardly be
surprised now if their
newly-minted franchises,
with so much of county
cricket’s future finance
resting on them, reach
the same conclusion. It is
the ECB’s example
to set.
Superchargers, who have barely
drawn breath before copping
the blame.
Certainly it is somewhat rich
coming from Strauss (below),
whose three-man shortlist in 2015
pitted Trevor Bayliss against his
Australian compatriots Tom
Moody and Jason Gillespie. And
nobody is arguing that Bayliss
hasn’t done a fine job. His record
in the white-ball game earned him
the role and with England
winning a first World Cup this
summer he has more than deliv-
ered. But that alone does not
justify the appointment.
The club game cannot
help but be influenced by
national events. Without
a doubt the Football
Association’s recruit-
ment of Sven Goran
Eriksson began a
process culminating
in even mid or
lower ranking
Premier
ATHLETICS contributes
nothing to the running
or upkeep of the London
Stadium, yet each time the
seats are reconfigured for a
summer meeting it costs the
taxpayer £4million.
It was hoped there would be
respite in 2022, by which
time the upgraded
Alexander Stadium in
Birmingham will be open for
the Commonwealth Games. It
is being expanded to hold
40,000 with work due for
completion in winter 2021 at
a cost of roughly £70m. Still,
at least £4m will be saved,
annually.
Not so, apparently. British
Athletics have intimated that
they still intend to host
yearly meetings in London,
so £4m conversion costs will
continue to be incurred. Yet
attendances for these events
— the Anniversary Games,
harking back to one glorious
night in 2012 — dwindle.
British Athletics gave this
year’s gate as 40,000 across
two nights, but this includes
many guests. By way of
comparison, West Ham get
19,000 for their fans’ fun day.
Once the Alexander Stadium
is completed, that should be
the home of British Athletics.
West Ham would then be free
to buy the London Stadium,
take it off the Government’s
bill, and truly make it home.
V
ErY polite, most
cricket folk. That is
the only explana-
tion for the way
Andrew Strauss
was allowed to remonstrate
with the counties over the
absence of English coaches
in The Hundred, without
being challenged.
Who, after all, made an Austral-
ian the England coach? That was
Strauss in his previous role as
director of cricket for the ECB.
And if England, with 142 years of
Test cricket behind them, don’t
have faith in an Englishman why
should Manchester Originals,
Trent rockets or any of the other
franchises yet to bowl a ball?
If another Australian, Tom
Moody, takes charge of Oval
Invincibles as expected, that will
mean no Englishman has landed
a job as head coach across the
eight teams that comprise The
Hundred. Including Moody there
will be five Australians (Shane
Warne, Simon Katich, Darren
Lehmann and Andrew McDon-
ald), and one each from South
Africa (Gary Kirsten), Sri Lanka
(Mahela Jayawardene) and New
Zealand (Stephen Fleming).
While this reflects the cosmo-
politan nature of the competition
and the success of T20 club com-
petitions abroad, it also amounts
to a lamentably serious failing
within the ECB. Warne isn’t even
a coach, for heaven’s sake.
Lehmann was the head of a now
discredited Australian regime.
It can be argued that the coun-
ties should have looked elsewhere,
but it is not just up to them to
produce talent. Good coaching is
the product of a strong national
system from which county oppor-
tunities arise. If England haven’t
got a coach worth a carat it has
about as much to do with the
Peaky Blinders as the Northern
Our scout is a top football
expert who attends matches
each week searching for the
next star. He’ll bring you his
verdict in Sportsmail.
THE
SCOUT
WHAT HAS HE GOT?
THE grandson of ex-City
stalwart and captain Mike
Doyle, this youngster looks as
though he will follow in his
footsteps. Pep Guardiola likes
a holding midfielder like
Fernandinho and Rodri. But
Doyle (right) is 17 and has time
on his side. I saw him give a
mature performance,
dictating play from deep areas
in an Under 23 game. It looks
as though he is a strong
character and his team-mates
respect his ability. He
continuously positions himself
to receive the ball from his
back line and from there his
job is to feed the players in
front of him. In the game he
often gathered the ball
without any pressure from an
opponent. This helped him but
when pressed he still
appeared to make time to see
the early pass. He’s a player
with the vision to spot an
unmarked team-mate in an
instant. Early on I assumed he
was a right-footed player only
for my judgment to be blown
to pieces with two cross-field
passes to the wide right
player with an accurate sweep
of his left foot. Probing from
deep he found a freedom to
orchestrate his team’s attack
from the base of a midfield
triangle.
WHAT DOES HE NEED?
AT ABOUT 5ft 8in he is not
going to dominate in the air.
Also he may have to find a
yard of pace as he looked
slightly one paced on a couple
of occasions when he had to
chase an attacker. The best
holding midfield players have
that zip to anticipate and
intercept or tackle.
However, this player appears
to have an old head on young
shoulders and as such he will
surely progress.
He looks as though he will
only improve with experience.
There are some talented young
players in the Manchester City
ranks and some expensive
imports but the true test for
Doyle will be a period on loan
at a lower league side to see if
he can cope with a more
fractured game.
At present, he seems more
than comfortable at his level.
TOMMY DOYLE
AGE: 17 CLUB: MANCHESTER CITY
POSITION: CENTRAL MIDFIELD VA LU E : £750,000
No love lost as Serena
draws Maria at US Open
THE return of Serena Williams to
the US Open promises to be
barely less dramatic than her
departure from it last year.
Nearly 12 months on from her
explosive defeat by Naomi Osaka
in the final, she now finds
herself in a first-round clash
against bitter rival Maria
Sharapova.
The draw for the season’s
last Grand Slam, which
starts on Monday,
produced their first
meeting since the
2016 Australian
Open. There is no
love lost between the
pair, with Sharapova
admitting their enmity
in her autobiography of
last year. The term ‘rivalry’
when it comes to two of the
game’s dominant personalities
must be used loosely, because the
American has subsequently
amassed a crushing 19-2 record
against the russian. Williams
(below) has failed to win a Grand
Slam since her return from giving
birth and pulled out of the
Canadian Open final.
Sharapova has not looked
the same player after
returning from a
15-month ban for
taking meldonium.
After making the last
eight at Wimbledon
last month Jo Konta
will face talented
russian Daria
Kasatkina, who is
ranked 42.
With Andy Murray absent,
Kyle Edmund will meet
Spanish clay-court expert Pablo
Andujar and Dan Evans tackles
world No 57 Adrian Mannarino
from France. Cam Norrie will face
a qualifier.
TENNIS
By MIKE DICKSON