Hussain and Fraser on England review panel by Cricket Archive Staff Reporter

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Player:	N Hussain, ARC Fraser, A Flintoff, H Morris, MJ Stewart, BC Rose, NV Knight
Event:	England in Australia 2006/07

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DateLine: 20th January 2007

 

Former captain Nasser Hussain and ex Test seamer Angus Fraser were both named Thursday as members of a seven-man panel which will conduct an inquest into England's Ashes debacle in Australia, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced. Panel chairman Ken Schofield, the former leading golf administrator, is the only member of the review team not to have played Test cricket for England. Also on board are former Glamorgan opener Hugh Morris, the ECB deputy chief executive, ex-England coach Mickey Stewart, Brian Rose, now Somerset's director of cricket, and Nick Knight, who retired from county duty with Warwickshire at the end of the last English season. Billed by the ECB as an "independent review", the panel aims to establish how England's performances "should be improved in order that England regain the Ashes in 2009 and win an ICC Global one-day event during the period 2007-11." It is due to report in March. ECB chairman David Morgan said in a statement: "The board has determined that this review forms a critical element of ECB's planning for the four-year cycle, which commences immediately after the 2007 World Cup, The board is delighted that such a high-profile team has been assembled with great experience of both playing and coaching at international and domestic level and looks forward to receiving the report at our March meeting." David Collier, the ECB chief executive, defended the inclusion on the panel of Morris saying that did not compromise the group's independence. "He's not a board director and he's not in charge of that area (international cricket), whereas I am a board director, so that's the logic there," Collier told AFP. As well as looking at the team, the performance of the selection panel, chaired by David Graveney, and a "review of the responsibilities of the head coach and captain" are also set to be examined. There has been intense speculation surrounding the future of England coach Duncan Fletcher and there have been calls for the former Zimbabwe captain to either stand down or be replaced after the World Cup which concludes in the West Indies in April. Former European PGA Tour executive director Schofield said: "I view it as a privilege to have been invited to chair this independent team and I hope that we can contribute to achieving success for the England team and to bringing the Ashes back to England in 2009, Cricket has been a passion of mine for many years and apart from experiences from another sport I hope I shall be able to contribute the view of the England cricket supporter to this important review." Both Fraser, the cricket correspondent of Britain's Independent newspaper, who also broacasts on both television and radio, and Hussain, a commentator for satellite channel Sky Sports and a columnist for the Daily Mail tabloid, have built extensive media careers since retiring from cricket. England's whitewashing was the first time in 86 years a side had lost an Ashes series 5-0, Andrew Flintoff's men joining the England team captained by Johnny Douglas in 1920/21 as the only sides to have lost an Anglo-Australian Test campaign by such a scoreline.