What next for England with Rob Key’s appointment signalling start of new era?

The Easter resignation of Joe Root as Test captain and Rob Key’s subsequent appointment as managing director of men’s cricket have answered two of the most pressing questions around the England side after a troubled winter.

But there remains plenty of uncertainty and plenty of tough decisions ahead.

Here, the PA news agency looks at what comes next.

It is only a matter of weeks since Key jokingly suggested that the demands of running the show at Lord’s could prove a distraction to his golf game, but having taken the reins he will now be throwing himself at the task. Time is tight, with less than seven weeks to go before the international summer gets under way. His first task will be to getting to know the internal structures of the England and Wales Cricket Board, familiarising himself with the workforce and beginning to formulate his own plans for moving forward. Top priority will be filling the coaching void.

A return to a split system of Test and limited-overs specialists seems inevitable. A mere glance at England’s fixture commitments over the next nine months make it the only logical choice and Key has previously come out in support of the idea. His predecessor Ashley Giles was resistance having worked in an imbalanced partnership with Andy Flower when England first trialled the structure, but appointing two new coaches simultaneously should mean neither one boasts a stronger hand than the other. Whether both coaches will have distinct staffs to work with or whether a central pool of skills coaches will be available to both is less certain and may depend on the budget. Either way, England can expect a wider field of candidates by streamlining the jobs and reducing the punishing time commitments attached to an