Flower power: can England tempt head coach back with an already flawed setup? | Ali Martin

That Andy Flower emerged as the favourite to take over England’s Test team so soon after Brendon McCullum’s demotion should come as no surprise. Put simply, the Zimbabwean is the leading active head coach on the circuit.

During his first spell in the job from 2009 to 2014, England won three successive Ashes series, ended a 27-year wait to win a Test series in India, and rose to No 1 in the Test rankings. The men’s white-ball team also broke its duck in global tournaments by lifting the World T20 in the Caribbean in 2010.

Flower has since carved out a successful second career. In franchise cricket his teams have won the Pakistan Super League, the Hundred, the ILT20, and the Indian Premier League (twice). When Australia broke India’s hearts by securing the 2023 World Cup, Flower was in their camp as a batting consultant.

The impact of Flower on English cricket also extends beyond his first spell as head coach and a subsequent four-year role with the Lions, having furnished his successors with a generation of hardened cricketers. Now that Ben Stokes has retired, following Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes, Joe Root feels like the last polar bear on a shrinking ice cap.

But while all this will doubtless appeal to Rob Key as he scours his contacts book for a new Test coach – not least player development, which rather stalled under McCullum as the team’s experience increasingly dropped off through retirements – there is the question of whether the vacancy can be sold to Flower.

For a start, there is his existing role with Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL. Richard Gould, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, sounds happy for the Test role to be done in conjunction with this. But it may not be feasible in practice. The IPL already rubs up against the start of the English Test summer and the future expansion of the tournament cannot be ruled out.

Flower would have to work with both Rob Key, director of England men’s cricket, and the outgoing Test coach Brendon McCullum (left), who is still white-ball coach. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/PA

Then there is the question of whether Flower would want to return to a split-coaching model, having attempted this (unsuccessfully) with Ashley Giles at the back end of his first spell. For all that he is said to have mellowed since, would Flower’s rigorous, details-led approach not be a culture clash with McCullum’s less formal environment on the other side of the fence?

In terms of the wider pathway, will Flower want his players to have come through a Lions setup that is being coached by Andrew Flintoff? They did not see eye-to-eye when Flintoff was still playing, while reports from his Lions setup are mixed. Some players have privately expressed dismay at a lack of technical feedback, while Flintoff himself has, quite ridiculously, been cleared to leave next winter’s South Africa tour early to take up a role in the Big Bash.

And then does Flower want the hassle? The fact that he is said to no longer be as intense as before may be down to his age, 58, but also that the spotlight is less harsh post-England. His RCB job comes with pressures, clearly, but like his upcoming role with London Spirit, franchise jobs are still short, sharp projects.

These questions will not be limited to Flower either. For all that England pay well, and have about 400 professionals from which to select, potential candidates may look at a management setup that is largely unchanged beyond McCullum’s reduced role and ask how much difference they can truly make.

They may wonder, for example, why a player like Stokes can go from extolling the virtues of Test cricket via a string of expletives on social media to walking away from it entirely in the space of a few months. Stokes is an emotional character, no question, but the dousing of his flame will be a red flag all the same.

They may also look at the vacant Test captaincy and ask if there is a viable leadership partnership to be forged. Harry Brook appears likely to be ringfenced in his current white-ball job – McCullum is keen for their alliance to continue – while Root would be returning to the job out of duty rather than personal preference.

Beyond the two Yorkshiremen – maybe even including them – there is no obvious emerging personality in the rank and file who simply needs a quiet facilitator as coach, much like Eoin Morgan, Trevor Bayliss, and England’s one-day side in 2015.

An experienced head coach could mould a young stripling such as Jacob Bethell in their image, or captain by proxy, much as Flower did with Alastair Cook back in the day. Whether one can be persuaded to join a setup that is flush with competing voices and still includes their predecessor is another matter.