Rob Key sees no reason England coach should be barred from IPL gig
- James Richardson
- 9 May 2022
Rob Key believes that England need to be open to allowing their head coach to perform duties in the Indian Premier League if it allows them to get the best man for the job.
New Managing Director of England Men's Cricket Rob Key believes that an England coach should be able to take time off to be part of the Indian Premier League.
Some of the leading candidates to coach England have existing IPL arrangements and might be reluctant to give them up.
Key said that England have to move with the times and recognise the place the IPL holds in the cricket calendar.
"I would much rather have the best person for ten months of the year than someone not as good for 12," Key said in a conversation with Nasser Hussain on Sky Sports.
"It's like with players. If you take Jos Buttler for example, Buttler can play the whole of the IPL but a coach could not do it? I don't see that as an issue at the moment and who knows where we are going in five, six, seven years' time.
"During the IPL, there's no international cricket on during the IPL, so I don't see it as an issue in the day and age we live in, where it would be an issue if you are a coach doing that."
No blanket rules on IPL
Key said that player participation in the IPL will still be dependant on workloads and each case regarding the T20 showcase will be assessed on its individual merit.
"You have got to take everything in its individual case. Someone might say, 'how can you then call someone back, how could you call say Jofra [Archer] back from the IPL when the coach is there the whole time?' I will tell you what, the coach is not running into bowl and potentially getting injured.
"You cannot just have blanket rules for everything, you have got to look at each individual case and think about what is the best thing for us to do here."
Rob Key to promote English coaches
Key said that he will be working to improve the standard of coaching in England with the hopes of producing stronger local candidates for the top job.
"As far as English coaches, this has gone on for a long time now and we have got to look at how we educate our coaches,"
"We make sure the same thing as well this our coaches; coaching at times, is like a player - you want to invest in the right people all the time, so you have got to earmark because there's a lot of other things you can do, like you [Nasser] and I would have gone onto the other side of the fence [punditry].
"So we need to make coaching an attractive part of cricket.
"We have got to make sure that we are seeing, as they go through the system or if they are completely outside of it or if they are going through courses, then we have got to earmark people and say 'this person is worth the investment, these are the ones we've got to try and make sure and keep an eye on them throughout our system because they might be in five or six years' time, they might be the best person to do that job.'"
