'I'd love to coach England' - Lehmann

Darren Lehmann has told of his desire to coach England, less than a week after his Yorkshire team-mate Darren Gough said Lehmann was the man for the job. While Duncan Fletcher has not announced plans to step aside, there has been recent debate over whether the time has come for him to move on after seven years in the role.

Lehmann said he would jump at the chance if he was offered the position. "It's something I'd love to do," Lehmann told The Sunday Telegraph. "If the opportunity came up to coach England, I'd certainly want to do it.

"To be perfectly honest, you never say never, do you? I know the England players quite well. At the moment, I've got a lot of things on and I'm still playing cricket, which makes it difficult to coach anyone. But I've always had coaching ambitions.

"I'd like to think I know the game well enough and I can work with players well enough. If you can do that, you can do some coaching at various levels. I can't imagine a better stage than to do it at an international level."

Lehmann was evasive when asked if the ECB had already approached him through Gough. "That's between Goughie and I," he said. "If it hasn't happened it hasn't, if it has, it has. Although I have played a lot of cricket with Darren and he knows what's going on in English cricket."

While speaking at last week's Adelaide Oval Test Dinner, Gough said there was a groundswell of support for Lehmann to take over from Fletcher. "It's a very strong rumour in England that Darren could be the next coach," Gough was reported as saying in the Adelaide Advertiser.

"He would be a very popular choice with the England players. He teaches enjoyment to the players, his knowledge is second-to-none, especially of the England players after playing in the country for so long [since 1997]. He has some amazing theories on how the game should be played, new thoughts."