24 March 1999
World Cup to be Lloyd's farewell
By Christopher Martin-Jenkins
DAVID LLOYD will stand down as England coach after the World Cup
final on June 20. His departure is no surprise - he had indicated
that it was a possibility during the tour of Australia and
officials of the England and Wales Cricket Board had done nothing
to discourage him - but the timing of the announcement is.
He had a meeting yesterday morning with the ECB chairman, Lord
MacLaurin, and the international teams director, Simon Pack, and
was unable to get the assurance for which he was hoping that his
contract would be extended beyond the end of the coming season.
An ECB official said last night: "David fully understands the
ECB's position, that it would be difficult to give such an
assurance at this time. Both agreed that the matter needed to be
concluded promptly to end speculation so that the England team
can concentrate fully on their World Cup campaign."
Graham Gooch and John Emburey head a lengthy list of possible
successors. Gooch managed the England tour of Australia capably
but is still more at home in a tracksuit or cricket whites.
Emburey recovered some of the ground he lost as an unsuccessful
coach of Northamptonshire when he coached the all-conquering
England A team who returned recently from a relatively low-key
tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Emburey's manager on that trip, Phil Neale, who has been director
of cricket for Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, will be another
candidate, along with the man he succeeded at Edgbaston, the
innovative but world-weary Bob Woolmer. Jack Birkenshaw has
proved himself a first-class coach of the old school in guiding
Leicestershire to two championships in three seasons but either
his county captain, James Whitaker, a natural leader, or the
quirky but original director of Somerset cricket, Dermot Reeve,
would represent more up-to-date thinking.
MacLaurin's personal choice would probably be Woolmer, but the
old Test and County Cricket Board missed their chance to appoint
him when they went for Ray Illingworth as Keith Fletcher's
successor in 1993. Woolmer, who made three hundreds in 19 Tests
for England, will retire as coach of South Africa, possibly
wreathed in laurels, after the World Cup, but he would need a big
salary and much persuading. Now settled in South Africa, he does
not want the travelling and stress involved in coaching an
international team again and he is more likely to take on another
county job, which would enable him to return home in the winter.
It should count against him, too, that he has stated publicly:
"My heart is in South Africa."
There has never been any question where Lloyd's heart lies: in
Accrington, England. The only serious criticism levelled against
him since he took over at the start of the 1996 season has been
an excess of passion for the England cause, notably during his
first tour as coach, to Zimbabwe in 1996. In three years he has
done for England what Woolmer might have done earlier, refining
and extending The Management and coaching support for the team,
making imaginative use of technology and making practice routines
both sharper and more enjoyable. Since he was appointed, England
have won three home Test series - against India, New Zealand and
South Africa - but the poor performances abroad have continued.
It is customary for at least one of the major figures in England
cricket to depart soon after a defeat by Australia, and there
tends also to be an unwritten understanding that whichever is the
oldest appointment among the reigning trio of captain, coach and
chairman of selectors will head the queue to the guillotine. Some
leave on their own terms but since the Ashes were lost in 1989,
David Gower, Micky Stewart, Gooch, Ted Dexter, Fletcher,
Illingworth and Mike Atherton have all lost or left posts which
they first assumed amid an aura of hope and confidence.
Lloyd, 52, humorist and enthusiast as well as one-eyed observer
of the world's injustices to England, has the chance to end his
short but intense period as coach with a World Cup triumph,
although everything would have to go perfectly for it to happen
and an early departure from the tournament starting on May 14 is
no less possible. A talented man, he will not be short of
alternative sources of bread and butter, either from a media
which frequently irritated him, or as a coach, possibly to an
Australian state team.
Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)