Former Ireland coach Ford says he would ‘love’ to work with England Test side

Former Ireland men's head coach Graham Ford has said that he would "love" to work with England after emerging as a candidate for their vacant head coach role. After leaving his position with Ireland last November, the South African is currently working with YMCA Cricket Club in Sandymount as he seeks to become an Irish citizen.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Ford confirmed that he would be willing to discuss becoming England’s red-ball coach should new managing director of the England and Wales Cricket Board Rob Key come calling. “If England felt that I was a suitable fit in any sort of role - gee, one would love to be involved with English cricket,” he said.

“Certainly red-ball cricket’s my preferred format of the game. I would absolutely love it so to be involved in Test cricket again would be something special for me.

“I’ve been very lucky over the years where I’ve had great opportunity to learn so much about the game from many wise cricketers, going back to my time with coaching South Africa and then my years in county cricket. They’ve all been great learning opportunities for me. So I certainly feel the experience that I have helps me when it comes to those situations.”

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Ford has worked with Key before when the pair were at Kent. In his autobiography released in 2020, Key was particularly effusive with his praise of the former Sri Lanka, South Africa and Surrey coach.

“We had a joint focus on taking the team forward,” wrote Key. “Fordy would do everything he could to make a player the best they could; me included. If you were out of nick, he’d throw at you in the nets until it got dark to try and get you back into form. Because of our shared attitude to betterment, we never really had a clash.”

The England head coach job looks set to be split between red and white-ball formats under Key, with Ford emerging as a candidate for the former. The position of men’s head coach has been vacant ever since Chris Silverwood left the role after England’s unsuccessful Ashes tour of Australia. According to a number of reports, other potential candidates such as Otis Gibson, Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene have been ruled out of the running.

Ford is clearly held in high regard across world cricket. The Irish Times understands that Ford has been approached with other coaching opportunities, most notably in the Indian Premier League, since stepping down as Ireland coach. After turning those down to stay in the country, it appears that the chance to work as England’s Test coach would be a more appealing prospect.

Ford has agreed to a three-year stint with YMCA. Losing Ford to the English set-up would be a big blow to Irish cricket, a number of current Irish internationals have confirmed to The Irish Times that Ford was the best coach they had worked with upon his departure. Keeping him in the Irish system was seen as a significant coup upon his YMCA appointment.