Fletcher Resigns, Lara Retires
A couple of big bits of news came out from the World Cup arena yesterday - the first was the expected news that Fletcher is leaving his post as England coach, and the second was that Lara has retired from all international cricket.
Fletcher’s position had become pretty untenable after the ashes whitewash and poor performance from England generally over the last year or so. Fletcher has done lots of good things we all know that, but 7 years in the job is long enough and there needs to be a fresh impetus. When Fletcher took over we were ranked the worst test nation, and to get us up to 2nd is a great achievement, but you must start to run out of fresh things to say to a team to attempt to motivate them. Also, our one day cricket has not improved one bit, and as an England coach you have to get both forms of the game right. We’re a fickle bunch in the UK, but we do demand a fair bit of success. Just look how long England football managers get before the media get on their back, and thats the kind of thing you’re dealing with in England.
We are expected to put Peter Moores in charge temporarily in the next couple of days, and he’s a highly rated coach so it will be good to see what he can do for the test series against the West Indies.
Moving onto Brian Lara, he’d already announced that he was quitting one day cricket, but now he has said he is quitting the test arena as well. This is a real shame as he is a great batsman, and one I was hoping I’d get to see play in the test series over here next month. He scored just under 12,000 test match runs which is a true testament to the staying power he had at a time that West Indies cricket wasn’t at its strongest. He held the world record for the highest test match score twice, and at 400 not out the current record will be difficult to beat. The West Indies will find it hard to replace a man with such a record, but there are a few players coming through for them at the moment and it is a good chance for them to stand up to the challenge and make the spot their own.
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