Rob Key: 'Andrew Flintoff would make an excellent England head coach

Rob Key, England's managing director, believes that Andrew Flintoff has a similar "gift" for man-management to that of Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, and would make an "excellent" candidate to one day take over as England head coach. Key, perhaps of Flintoff's dearest companion in the game, was instrumental in his re-visitation of the public eye after he experienced terrible facial wounds while shooting an episode of Top Stuff in December 2022. Flintoff was offered a neglected job in Britain's white-ball set-up during last year's series against New Zealand, during which time the degree of his wounds became evident, and he proceeded to be a tutor for the Britain Lions set-up preceding his divulging as the new lead trainer of Northern Superchargers during the current year's Hundred. Addressing The Message, Key affirmed that Flintoff has additionally been added to Britain's back-room staff for their T20 World Cup crusade in the Caribbean in June - his most critical contribution with the crew yet - as Jos Buttler's men look to guard the title that they won in Australia a long time back. "Undeniably, I figure he would be a great lead trainer," Key told the paper. "Who can say for sure where he winds up from now on. He will be a commendable up-and-comer going ahead. At the point when that opportunity arrives and whoever is in this work, and it very well may be beyond my time, they would be idiotic not to check him out." As he would see it, Flintoff's battles - both since his mishap and following his own playing vocation, which was stopped by a knee injury - have furnished him with an "the capacity to understand people on a deeper level" that players esteem while managing the tensions of undeniable level game. "Flintoff is a pioneer like [Ben] Stirs up," Key said. "Simply having somebody who understands what it resembles to battle and come out the opposite end is so interesting to those players. At the point when they have had a terrible day he can make sense of it. He is one of those individuals when he converses with you he is resolving you. "He has high capacity to appreciate people at their core so he comprehends when you really want somewhat of an arm around your shoulder or gruff trustworthiness. Those are the abilities that make an incredible pioneer. Authority is tied in with causing individuals around you to feel much improved and he is somebody who is that way. He brings a great deal to the table." Flintoff's Britain job will reach out into the four-match T20I series against Pakistan that goes before the T20 World Cup - whereupon the crew's re-visitation of St Lucia will restore recollections of the scandalous Pedalo occurrence that came to portray Britain's poorly featured crusade at the 2007 50-over World Cup. However, even that episode, as Key would see it, considers important experience as Flintoff moves further into his training vocation, and he trusts that other unmistakable late players, like Moeen Ali and Eoin Morgan, can be correspondingly optimized once again into the expert set-up after their playing days. "In the event that you could plan the ideal lead trainer improvement program, Flintoff is going on a splendid excursion," he said. "He got going as a guide assisting, then, at that point, a touch of Lions cricket, the under-19s and he will be a lead trainer of a group with a draft, resolving how you collect a crew and get them all playing together rapidly. "That is pertinent experience significantly more than sitting on a Zoom call standing by listening to somebody instruct you. Moeen Ali I think will be a superb mentor, there are such countless individuals. They have these abilities and we need to attempt to make encounters where they can truly learn."