Knight’s sacking exposes England’s failure to plan captaincy succession | Raf Nicholson
Eight weeks until their next series they must appoint a coach, a captain and try to show they are serious about cultural change
They say in cricket that one brings two: something that has proved true in the case of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s post-Ashes review. On Friday, Jon Lewis was sacked as head coach of England Women’s team and 24 hours later Heather Knight followed him out of the door.
A 16-0, error-strewn whitewash in Australia required major changes and the ECB has certainly delivered on that score. Lewis was always unlikely to survive after his “Bondi-to-Coogee” interview, when he blamed the defeat on Australia’s sunnier climes, made him a laughing stock. But stripping Knight of the captaincy is a far more radical step – an admission that, despite the insistence to the contrary of Clare Connor, the managing director of women’s cricket, the ECB’s review has indeed uncovered evidence of a poor team culture. Why else would they end Knight’s reign at a point when she is 15 months away from fulfilling her long-stated ambition of leading her country in a home T20 World Cup?
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