England will unveil their new coach on Saturday – with the man they sacked five years ago set to land the job again.
Peter Moores has emerged as the favourite to take over from Andy Flower, with Paul Farbrace – the English coach of the Sri Lanka side that won the Twenty20 World Cup this month – ready to join him in a strong double act.
New managing director of England cricket Paul Downton will take the two names to be rubber-stamped by the ECB board in a telephone conference in the morning, with the unveiling to take place afterwards.
England skipper Alastair Cook is also set to be there as the new era officially gets underway.
And it is the staunch support of outgoing boss Flower that is believed to have tipped the scales in Moores’ favour over current one-day-internationals coach and former England spinner Ashley Giles.
Giles will have every right to feel aggrieved if, as expected, he does not get the chance to take the top job after looking after weakened ODI and T20 sides for the past 15 months.
However, his record has not been the greatest and even though he took hosts England to a 2013 Champions Trophy Final defeat by India, that was a tournament they should have won.
Heavy defeats to Australia and the embarrassment of losing to Holland in the World T20 last month will not have done him any favours either.
Were Moores to be named, it would be a huge turnaround for the 51-year-old.
He has rebuilt his reputation as a high quality coach at Lancashire after a tough 18 months in charge of England.
Ahead of his interview, Moores said. “There’s an excitement to have another go at it, and a frustration at the last time because you always have a vision when you’re doing any job of where you want to go.”
Senior players such as Michael Vaughan and Pietersen found Moores’ methods hard to get on board with back in 2008 and ultimately it cost him his job early the following year.
But with a new-look England team set to be built with Cook taking a much more pro-active role as skipper, Moores could now have the chance to do the job for the long haul.
