Stephen Fleming, England's new Test coach, believes that his position should ideally be held by an Englishman, and has pledged to make the development of English coaches a cornerstone of his tenure.
Fleming is the second consecutive New Zealander to hold the role after agreeing to succeed Brendon McCullum on a four-year contract earlier this year. It continues a trend of England finding Test coaches from overseas, with only two Englishmen - Peter Moores (2007-09 and 2014-15) and Chris Silverwood (2019-22) - holding the role on a full-time basis in the 21st century.
Fleming's newly appointed support staff features several potential future Test coaches, including Richard Dawson, James Foster and Marcus Trescothick, who held the role on an interim basis earlier this year. Jonathan Trott, another former England player, will coach England Lions this winter, and Mike Yardy has been appointed national batting lead at the ECB.
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"One of my focus points is that I do believe that, primarily, the national team should be coached by a national representative," Fleming said, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live.
"I'm grateful for the opportunity, but there will be some development in terms of the coaching and you can see by our staff that there are some really key people that have come back into the system, and I'm really pleased about that and I look forward to working with them, but it [the development of English coaches] is a real focus."
Dawson stepped down as Glamorgan head coach earlier this month to take up a dual role as national spin-bowling lead and one of Fleming's assistants, and Rob Key, England's managing director, hinted that he would be "near the top of that list" when the time comes to appoint Fleming's successor in years to come.
Fleming also confirmed his intention to bring some county coaches into the England set-up when their schedules allow to further their development.
"It's an ambition as well that you will also get county coaches who will be introduced at certain times, and you will get past players that will be asked to come back as well," he said. "It's really inclusive and a comfortable nature around using what's around, but also driving what should be driven within the county game and the English game."
Fleming will not take charge of his first series until England travel to South Africa in December, with Trescothick deputising for their win over Pakistan in August-September. Fleming travelled to the UK last month and toured the counties on a fact-finding mission, and said that he would do similar ahead of next summer's Ashes series, in an obvious contrast to McCullum.
"Yeah, I'll be around," Fleming said. "I actually really enjoyed this year getting to catch up with a lot of the guys that I played with [who] are now in positions - either coaching position or the head position - at counties. It was good to catch up with those guys and get a good feel for where the county game is at… It will be a key part to continuing developing players."
Fleming also hinted strongly that England will continue to operate without a frontline spinner in South Africa, instead relying on part-time options in Jacob Bethell, Dan Lawrence and Joe Root.
"Pitches are becoming a little bit more seamer-friendly [in Test cricket]," he said. "Games are over in three-and-a-half to four days, max. You're not getting the deterioration in a lot of wickets that you used to see, with the advent of drop-ins, so it's becoming a lot more challenging [for spinners].
"What you're seeing is the rise of the part-time spinner: in our case, the Bethells, the Lawrences and the Roots. And then if you combine that with four seamers, it's an adequate - or more than adequate - attack to get through a Test match, so the dynamic of it really has changed at the moment."