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

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