With England’s head coach, Lisa Keightley’s tenure coming to an end later this month (September), and her declining a contract extension to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), speculations took place of former English skipper Charlotte Edwards stepping in for the post.
Charlotte Edwards who captained England for 10 years until 2016, currently is the coach of the Southern Brave in The Hundred, Southern Vipers in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, and recently was roped in by Sydney Sixers in the Women’s Big Bash League. With speculations presenting her as a frontrunner, she herself has put a full stop to the buzz by stating on Sky Sports, “I don’t really think it’s for me right now.”
She continued, “I’m heading to Sydney in a couple of weeks to coach out there, and to be fair, I’m really happy doing what I’m doing. So I’ll probably speak to someone in the next couple of weeks. It just feels at the moment potentially that I’ve got the best of everything and I’m enjoying what I’m doing. And I think that’s really important to me right now. And I guess I’ve got quite a long time to coach England and I’m still quite young, well I think I am (laughs).”
Former England captain Charlotte Edwards confirms she won’t be applying for England’s Head Coach position#CricketTwitter #ENGviND pic.twitter.com/hC04rfSnG0
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) September 16, 2022
She added, “I think a big part of my planning was to go to the Big Bash and do a team out there and that felt like it was part of my process to go into international cricket, and that’s still the plan if I’m honest.” And concluded by saying, “I feel like I’m really developing and so yeah, I’d probably need someone to contact me and talk to me about it. But I’m definitely sort of happy where I am. And I’ll continue to do what I’m doing.”
Charlotte Edwards is England’s leading run-scorer in women’s ODIs and T20Is, she also captained her to Ashes victories in 2008, 2013 and 2014 as well as the 50 and 20-over World Cups in 2009, one would have wished for a person with this big a stature take up the duties but isn’t to be, for now, and that leaves ECB to keep their search on.
The former Australian cricketer, Lisa Keightley was appointed as the head coach of the England women’s team in January 2020 and has had a good stint with the team, but will leave with only the disappointment of having not won any major cricketing tournament.
Lisa had coached England to the semifinals in the ICC T20 World Cup in 2020, the Commonwealth Games medal match finish in 2022 and early in the same year to the finals of the ICC ODI World Cup, but the big-day defeats aren’t believed to be the reason behind Lisa Knightley’s exit as the decision of her to part ways with the ECB was reached mutually before the start of the Commonwealth Games.
Post England’s ongoing series against India comes to an end, it also will mark an end to Lisa Knightley’s stint as the side’s head coach. The ECB is expected to fasten the process and make a timely appointment as the ICC T20 World Cup that’ll be played early in 2023 in South Africa is just around the corner, so a buildup has to get underway as soon as possible and that will require the team to have a new head coach in place.
