Nasser Hussain sympathises with Ashley Giles but says departure to be expected

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Nasser Hussain has sympathy with Ashley Giles after he stepped down as managing director of England men’s cricket, but believes his former team-mate got some key decisions wrong.

The former spinner has departed after a disastrous Ashes series, which ended in a 4-0 defeat Down Under, and followed a poor 2021 where England lost nine of their 15 Tests and suffered a semi-final defeat in the T20 World Cup in November.

“I think when you lose an Ashes series 4-0 and the way they have played in Test-match cricket over the last year or so it was always going to be on the cards that there was going to be upheaval in the management with the tour of the West Indies imminent and they had to make some decisions about people off the field,” former England captain Hussain told Sky Sports.

“They’re going to have to make some decisions more importantly on the on-field cricketers as well but once you lose 4-0 and the manner of those defeats as well, they were hardly in a session in that Ashes Test series and got a lot of key decisions wrong.

“All eyes were on Chris Silverwood as the coach and it looks like there’s going to be real upheaval because Ashley Giles is the first man out the door.

“I have a lot of sympathy for both Silverwood and Ashley Giles because in the last couple of years England have played more Test cricket than anybody else and more Test cricket away from home in a pandemic.

“Their players have been in bubbles and travelling the world and it’s been incredibly difficult to get 11 players switched on and playing good quality cricket all around the world.”

Sir Andrew Strauss, who Giles replaced in 2018, has agreed to step in on an interim basis and put arrangements in place for next month’s three-Test series in the West Indies.

Giles appointed Silverwood as head coach in 2019 following the departure of Trevor Bayliss, under whom England won the 2019 World Cup, and also made him solely responsible for selection from April last year.

Former England fast bowler Jonathan Agnew thinks Silverwood must also be looking over his shoulder following Giles’ departure.

Agnew told BBC Radio 5 Live: “The only surprise is that he (Giles) has gone first. The two mistakes he made were the rest and rotation, which was not popular with the players, and the appointment of Chris Silverwood as the overall supremo.

“To have one person running the whole system, as Silverwood was doing for just over a year, is, I don’t think, a very good idea – that has been shown to be the case and Giles has done the honourable thing, felt a bit of pressure, and has gone.

“Whether Silverwood goes between now and the West Indies, which is coming up very shortly, they’ve got to settle down and name a team for that… if you remove both so quickly I’m not sure that’s a great thing, but I think Silverwood will be looking very anxiously over his shoulder.”