Flower gets backing of ECB into 2015

David Collier, the ECB chief executive, has given a strong indication that Andy Flower will remain as team director after the Ashes series.

There has been debate around Flower's future with England lurching towards a 5-0 Ashes whitewash. He has been reluctant to discuss his plans but did indicate after the Melbourne Test that he wanted to be part of rebuilding the England side.

Collier, who is currently in Australia for conclusion of the Ashes, told Sky Sports he sees Flower, who no longer oversees the day-to-day running of the limited-overs sides, remaining in his position until at least 2015 when the Ashes are next contested in England and wants the Test partnership with Alastair Cook to continue.

"We need that experience," he said. "When you go through a transitional period you need somebody with knowledge, somebody who knows our system, somebody who works with all of our key coaches, Andy has all of those attributes and more and I'm sure he'll do a good job leading us into 2015. Alastair fully deserves the support of Team England and we look forward to both Alastair and Andy leading us to success in the future."

Cook has received some strong criticism for his on-field tactics during the series while he has not scored a hundred, with one innings remaining, across the ten Ashes Tests of the back-to-back series.

"People grow into the job, captains mature, players mature, it will take some time for people to reach their absolute pinnacle," Collier said. "We were absolutely convinced that he was the right man at the time and we're still convinced today."

Collier also said there would not be such an extensive review of English cricket as took place after the 2006-07 whitewash when the Schofield report was commissioned. "We're not going to do a review of that nature, but we will do a full debrief and learn the lessons we need to from this tour.

"We have to look back and reflect on what has gone right and what has gone wrong and learn lessons from it. We've had a great run coming into this series. In 13 Test matches coming into the series we'd won 10 and drew three. It had been a good year to start with, but clearly we need to re-stock for 2014."