Chris Silverwood wouldn’t have been my first choice, says Kevin Pietersen
Former swashbuckling English batsman Kevin Pietersen feels that Silverwood’s lack of experience in international cricket might prove to be costly in the future. After impressively managing to win the County Championship with Essex in 2017, Silverwood was appointed as England’s head coach on Monday.
Although England drew the Ashes with Australia, they could not manage to retain the Urn. An unfortunate injury to their talisman James Anderson played a huge part in that. But there were a lot of questionable decisions taken by the team management and the captain, especially in the batting order and team selection.
After Trevor Bayliss left the team post the series, after much speculation, Silverwood, who was also the team's incumbent bowling coach, was appointed as the new head coach, owing to his excellent man-management skills and his good CV, which saw him lead Essex to the Division one title in 2017. However, Kevin Pietersen has a different opinion on this decision.
"He wouldn't have been my choice but I don't make the decision,” Pietersen told Omnisport.
"I hope it works out for English cricket, I hope it works out for [director of England men's cricket] Ashley Giles. Ashley Giles is a very close friend of mine. He looked after me when I came into the England team in 2004 and it's a brave decision,” he added.
Pietersen believes that being the latest winners of the Cricket World Cup, England players will be in the headlines all the time. He further said that having no international coaching experience, Silverwood's appointment might be a huge risk as managing England is a very big responsibility.
"I understand Ashley Giles' reasons for that. He wanted to keep one coach across all three forms of the game. I hope it works out, I really hope it works out for him. But with no head-coach success, failure… let's hope he's learned a hell of a lot from Bayliss, because it's a tough world being the head coach of an international team, especially England," he said.
Pietersen also gave his opinion on Gary Kirsten being a possible front-runner for the t20 head coach role and said that Kirsten wouldn't have been his choice.
"I don't think Gary has the greatest numbers when it comes to T20 cricket. The game evolves, the game gets a lot faster, but he has some fantastic numbers with South Africa and with India the longer form of the game, the Test side of the game, the one-day side of the game," he said of Kirsten.
When asked about who his first choice as a head coach was, he mentioned his former Surrey head coach Graham Ford. He touched on the ability of Graham Ford to handle younger players and the extensive knowledge of the game he possesses.
"He understands the game of cricket. He treats the youngest player the same as the most senior player,” said Pietersen.
"He can guide a captain, he's worked alongside some of the most fantastic players and he could guide that young England team and he could definitely make a difference with that batting," he signed off.
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