Category: England Cricket

• Former all-rounder will lead two tours this winter
• ECB: former player ‘emerged as standout candidate’

Andrew Flintoff has promised to “inspire the next generation” after the former England all-rounder and television presenter was named head coach of the England Lions. Flintoff will lead the men’s development team on tours of South Africa and Australia over the winter, and through home series against India A and Zimbabwe next summer.

The appointment continues a rapid rise through the coaching ranks since Flintoff returned his attention to the sport after a serious car accident while filming the BBC series Top Gear in December 2022. He joined the England white-ball side as a consultant coach late last year, and was given his first head coach position with Northern Superchargers for this year’s Hundred.

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New Zealander faces ludicrous schedule but his new role brings welcome certainty for the players

At the end of the final Test of the summer, against Sri Lanka starting on Friday at the Oval, Brendon McCullum will go home to New Zealand for what is being called a short break. The calm before the storm. In the 25 months since his appointment as head coach of England’s red‑ball side – they have played eight more Tests than anyone else – he has spent plenty of time there, striking a balance between feet up at home and feet up on Test ground balconies. All that is about to change.

England’s schedule – as he and Rob Key, England’s managing director of men’s cricket, referred to in announcing the Kiwi’s new dual role on Tuesday – eases slightly next year from a situation that has slipped the wrong side of ludicrous: August is only just over, but the next time England go as long as 48 hours without having a senior squad on duty it will be Christmas week.

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• Test coach will take over white-ball teams in January
• ‘I’m excited to extend my role,’ says McCullum

Brendon McCullum will take full control of England’s men’s international teams from January after the red-ball coach agreed to also assume white-ball duties in what the ECB called “a strategic restructure of the set-up”. McCullum has also extended his contract, which had been due to end after next winter’s Ashes series, to the end of 2027 and the aftermath of that autumn’s 50-over World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

The New Zealander took charge of England’s red-ball team in May 2022, and with Ben Stokes as captain transformed their approach and their fortunes: they had won one of their previous 17 games but they have since won 19 out of 28, losing three of 18 at home. But in the same period England’s white-ball fortunes have waned, leading to the dismissal of Matthew Mott as coach in late July.

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• Stone recalled for first time since 2021 back operation
• Seamer replaces injured Mark Wood for second Test

Olly Stone will cap his recovery from a career-rescuing operation to insert two screws into his back, which took place in the hospital next to Lord’s in 2021, by returning to St John’s Wood and the England Test side. He comes in after a three-year absence for the second match against Sri Lanka on Thursday, as a replacement for the injured Mark Wood.

Stone, the only change to the side that won at Old Trafford on Saturday, made his Test debut against Ireland at Lord’s in 2019 and had not returned to the venue until this summer’s stint with London Spirit in the Hundred. The 30-year-old’s recall to the Test side follows an unexpected emergence as a potential all-rounder.

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Joe Root adapted his game at Old Trafford but a spirited Sri Lanka side could cause problems in the second Test

The first match of this summer’s second Test series presented an intriguing contrast with the corresponding fixture against West Indies last month. England won them both, romping to victory at Lord’s in their first home game of the year by an innings and 114 runs after an hour’s play on the third day, while on Saturday at Old Trafford Joe Root scored the runs that sealed success against Sri Lanka, by a five-wicket margin, at the very end of the fourth.

James Anderson’s retirement meant the game at Lord’s was inevitably imbued with a nostalgic sentimentality, but the final moments at Old Trafford were lent a sepia hue only by the setting sun. For all that England were carried across the finish line by a man playing his 144^th game this felt like a forward-facing team, led for the first time by the 26-year-old Ollie Pope and with the man of the match award collected by Jamie Smith, the 24-year-old Surrey wicketkeeper who played so thrillingly in his inaugural Test summer.

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