• Trevor Bayliss was appointed England’s new head coach on Tuesday
• His appointment is an attempt to turn around their limited-overs fortunes
• Bayliss will be on what ECB sources describe is a ‘long-term contract’

By

Lawrence Booth for the Daily Mail

Published:
21:35 GMT, 26 May 2015

|
Updated:
22:01 GMT, 26 May 2015

The appointment as England’s head coach of Trevor Bayliss is not just aimed at giving them a fighting chance of beating Australia this summer. It is an attempt to resurrect the nation’s fortunes in limited-overs cricket, which have been in the doldrums for over 20 years.

The 52-year-old Bayliss – respected around the cricketing world for his quiet but firm modus operandi – will take over from interim coach and former colleague Paul Farbrace in time for the Ashes, which start in Cardiff on July 8. He will be on what an ECB source would only describe as a ‘long-term contract’.

And he has such an impressive all-round CV that it’s a wonder Yorkshire’s Jason Gillespie, another Australian, was ever anointed favourite for the job in the first place.

Trevor Bayliss has been appointed England’s head coach and already has those in Australia rattled

Bayliss has been appointed as the coach of England and will take charge in time for the Ashes series

Bayliss spoke on Tuesday of the ‘unbelievable feeling’ of landing ‘one of the big jobs in the cricket world’. But his track record suggests he will take it in his stride.

He has twice won Australia’s first-class title with New South Wales, twice claimed the IPL with the previously unfancied Kolkata Knight Riders, and lifted Australia’s Big Bash League at the first attempt with Sydney Sixers.

At international level, Bayliss helped Sri Lanka to No 2 in the Test rankings, their highest position, and coached them to the finals of 2009 World Twenty20 and the 2011 World Cup. 

When he was briefly given the reins of Australia’s Twenty20 side last year, they promptly beat South Africa.

ECB director of cricket Andrew Strauss said: ‘Trevor has proved himself in both domestic and international cricket, has a strong reputation for man-management and has shown how to build winning teams in all three formats.

‘His expertise in the shorter forms of the game will be vital as we build towards three major ICC events over the next four years.’

Two of those three events – the 2017 Champions Trophy and the 2019 World Cup – will take place in this country, and the ECB are desperate to avoid a repeat on home turf of the dismal showing at the 50-over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year.

It is in Bayliss’s favour that England’s captain in both 50-over and Twenty20 cricket is Eoin Morgan, whom he has worked with at Kolkata.

The task of turning around England’s limited-overs fortunes may prove as tricky as regaining the Ashes: they currently lie sixth in the one-day rankings and eighth in the Twenty20 table.

But it has not gone unnoticed that nine of Australia’s 17-man Ashes squad this summer are from New South Wales, Bayliss’s former state. They include captain Michael Clarke, his heir apparent Steven Smith, wicketkeeper Brad Haddin and opening batsman David Warner. 

Bayliss (left) pictured with Sydney Sixers captain Marcus North at the SCG in February, 2014

Australian coach Bayliss, pictured in 2007, during his time as coach of the Sri Lanka team

Matthew Mott, who was Bayliss’s assistant when NSW won the Pura Cup in 2004-05, told the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘There’s a lot of respect for him within that Australian set-up. They’ll know England have had someone land in their lap who’s extremely experienced and knows the Australian players intensely well. I think it’s a hell of a good appointment.’

His appointment has also gone down well with Farbrace, who was his No 2 in Sri Lanka and formed a strong bond with Bayliss after the two men were caught up in the terrorist attack on the team bus in Lahore in March 2009.

‘We’ve always had a good relationship but we were just grateful we got through that to be honest,’ said Farbrace. ‘Something like that certainly does bring you closer together.’

Bayliss plans to tap into Farbrace’s knowledge of the county circuit, while the two men share the view that coaching is best done in the background, leaving centre stage to the captain and his players.

‘Trevor’s an old-fashioned cricket coach,’ said Farbrace. He likes being in the nets and he’s a good one-to-one worker with the players. He’s a very calm guy. He doesn’t say a great deal, but when he does people listen. He’s a good, straightforward cricket man. 

England captain Alastair Cook (right) shares a joke with man of the match Ben Stokes after the first Test

Stokes smashes a six during his stunning innings, which vindicated the decision to bat him at No 6

England celebrate after taking a wicket during a dramatic final day of the first Test with New Zealand at Lord’s

England’s interim coach, Paul Farbrace (left, and with Stokes, right) has helped turn the team around

‘With him, the captain will always be in charge on the field and rightly so. Trveor’s not one for sending notes. He prepares the team and lets the captain run the side.’

As if singing from the same hymn sheet, Bayliss said: ‘I won’t chase the publicity, and I want the players to have a reasonable say in how they want things to work.’ And his experience at international level has left him with no qualms of coming up against his own country.

‘I have coached against Australia before with Sri Lanka, and we had some success against them, winning a one-day series in Australia, and beating them in the World Twenty20 in 2009,’ he said.

‘The way I explained it then is that in Australia your toughest battles are against your brothers and best mates in the backyard.’

Whatever Bayliss allows his new charges to be this summer, he won’t allow them to be overawed. 

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