Stubborn coach is owed debt of thanks
After weeks where many have been calling for Duncan Fletcher to step down, now that he has the general reaction is one of praise for his time at the helm, while offering interesting insights about the reasons behind his decision.
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Daily Telegraph
After weeks where many have been calling for Duncan Fletcher to step down, now that he has the general reaction is one of praise for his time at the helm, while offering interesting insights about the reasons behind his decision.
In The Daily Telegraph, Derek Pringle writes:
Duncan Fletcher's most eye-catching achievement as England coach was the 2005 Ashes, but his greatest was to make them a better team abroad. Before he took over, England travelled worse than a punnet of strawberries, until he showed them how to win in places as hostile to tourists as Karachi and Kingston.
He will never admit the error of recent ways or relief at going, at least not publicly. But whether you liked him or not, Fletcher took the job of coaching England with enormous seriousness and pride and turned them into a better Test side. For that alone cricket in this country owes him heartfelt thanks.
In The Guardian, Mike Selvey says:
In the end, it was his stubbornness and loyalty to his charges - traits which for much of the time served him well - which brought about his decline. The system he created became too cosy, the familiarity of it all becoming less challenging for players who might now better respond to fresh faces and voices even in doing the same routines. He knew in his own mind his guns and he stuck to them rigidly, always offering reasoned, if not necessarily cogent, argument to back up his judgments. But the players he supported stopped responding. It was time to go
In The Times, Simon Barnes points out that Fletcher just hung around too long:
Players run out of steam, legs, courage, coordination, appetite, but a coach is under no physical stress. You’d think a coach could go on coaching for ever. But it doesn’t happen. Coaches, too, suffer from the stresses and strains of sport. Coaches, too, run out of steam. Coaches, too, have a sell-by date.
And that, alas, is what has happened to Fletcher. He was a very good coach who ran past his time. Like a great writer who had said all he had to say, he fell back on cliché, repetition and self-parody. That was what led to the disaster of the Ashes series in Australia last winter and thence to England’s ludicrous performance at the World Cup.
And also in The Times, Shane Warne, who admits to being a fan of Fletcher's, says it was time for him to go:
What made us laugh in the Australia dressing-room about Fletcher during the last Ashes series was how often the England coach would contradict himself in his public statements. He would often change his story, depending on whether it suited England or not, just to try and have a go at us. And although there may have been method behind his madness, I think he did sometimes say things to suit what was best for Duncan Fletcher.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of ESPNcricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa