Stephen Fleming warned over England job: 'We don't have MS Dhoni here'

England legend Michael Vaughan has warned the new men’s Test coach Stephen Fleming that he won’t find an MS Dhoni-like figure to ‘run the ship’ in English cricket, as he did during his long stint at Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. Vaughan said that Fleming might miss Dhoni and the wider CSK support staff, like the bowling coach Eric Simons, when he takes over from Brendon McCullum.

Fleming was a CSK player in 2008 and took over as the coach in 2009. All five of his IPL trophies came with Dhoni as the captain. The former India wicketkeeper batter was considered the tactical mind behind the team while Fleming was seen more as a man manager, keeping the team emotionally prepared. It was used as a stick to beat the New Zealander with when he failed to find similar success in other leagues.

Those old-fashioned ideas seemed to play a role in his departure, which coincided with the England job opening up.

“Fleming is very well respected, renowned for being a very good manager and tactician. I’ve seen him at the IPL and one of the problems he might discover in English cricket is that we do not have an MS Dhoni to be his captain,” Vaughan wrote in The Telegraph.

“Dhoni ran the ship at Chennai Super Kings and Fleming had some really good backroom coaches as well. Eric Simons was a wonderful bowling coach for him, a master at getting the white ball to swing. His team was built around skill with the ball, not express pace. I wonder whether that is an indication that the skill side of bowling will come back into the England Test team rather than just out-and-out speed,” he added.

Fleming will work with Joe Root, who has returned as the Test captain in Ben Stokes’ absence.

Fleming’s advantage

He was not England’s first choice. Andy Flower rejected the job a few weeks ago, and there were several other candidates in the fray.

But Vaughan believes that one advantage Fleming has is his experience with the ‘modern’ player, aware of the abundance of opportunities the sport has, saying that it could help him change the one-minded culture in the team.

“Fleming also knows how to handle the modern player, guys who can earn more in one franchise gig than we did playing a whole summer for England,” he said. “They are a different breed now and need to be handled accordingly. We all want flamboyance at the right time, but you can’t play flamboyant, aggressive, entertaining cricket every day and I hope he is going to really drill that into them. I will also be interested to see who coaches the players. Fleming is not a hands-on coach, he is a manager,” Vaughan added.

Fleming is gone on a long break for now and will only take over the England job during the tour of South Africa next year.