ECB to launch high-performance review for England matches, reveals Andrew Strauss

The ECB’s interim managing director and former England captain Andrew Strauss revealed that the board is set to launch a high-performance review into English cricket to make the England men's team ‘the best in the world in all formats’. Strauss also warned that English cricket may need more than just incremental change if it wants to produce a quality men's Test side. 

England were beaten 4-0 in their recent Ashes series in Australia, and then held a draw against West Indies in the first of the three-match Test series last week. "The results do not lie," Strauss told the BBC. "We have been number one in the world in Test cricket for 12 months in the last 42 years. Small incremental change isn't going to make the difference we need. We need to be bold and ambitious," he continued.

Further, Strauss, while speaking in Barbados where the second Test against West Indies is due to start on Wednesday, laid out the plans for the review, for which recommendations are due to be published in September with a view to potentially restructuring the English season from next year. 

"The perception so far is that it's all about red-ball cricket and that it's all about the domestic game. But the way we're approaching it, and I believe the only way you can approach these things is to start at the beginning, which is what is the scale of our ambition for the game in this country?," he stated.

"And I believe we're looking very strongly at being the best in the world in all formats. I think the knock-on effects, right the way through the game if the shop window is functioning well, are enormous, so as a game we need to get alignment behind that ambition."

The high-performance review will be led by an independent body, that is yet to be chosen and who will undertake the first two stages of the review before their recommendations are presented to the ECBand the county chairs.

Strauss also confirmed that England will have a new head coach in place for the first Test of the summer, against New Zealand at Lord's in June.

Strauss left his role as managing director of the ECB in 2018 following the death of his wife Ruth, but returned to replace his successor Ashley Giles after the fallout from the disappointing Ashes series in Australia.