When faced with conditions markedly different to one’s own, and an opponent who is very familiar with them, you need all the expertise you can get. Even more so when the most crucial skillset in those conditions is something which for decades you have struggled to execute yourself while the opposition have tied you in knots with it. And yet, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the second richest national governing body in the cricketing world, haven’t hired a permanent spin bowling coach for 5 years. What, as they say, gives?

When the perma-smiling, stripey-bearded, honorary Brightonian former Pakistan leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed left the employ of the ECB in 2014, he could look back proudly on a 6 year tenure in which England had produced not one, but two, world-class finger-spinners, who had combined to devastating effect to help England win their first Test series in India in almost 28 years - something no other side has been able to do in the 7 years and 11 series since. Kevin Pietersen and Alastair Cook put India on the ropes, but it was Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar who knocked MS Dhoni’s team to the canvas.

This wasn’t a one-off, nor even the first time in 2012: England’s twin-headed demon spinner Gronty Swannesar (try not to think too hard about that image) had taken 27 wickets between them in the UAE (in fact, Monty was bafflingly left out of the first Test, a theme which would repeat in India) vs Pakistan in January-February, only for the batting to crumble against Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman. And Swann had almost matched the great Rangana Herath in Sri Lanka a month later.

Under Mushy’s watchful eye, Swann took over twice as many wickets as Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra combined when ODI world champions and Test world no.1 India came to England running on fumes in 2011, and played a vital role in the historic 2010/11 Ashes victory. While the next visit to Australia brought the Andy Flower era crashing down around everyone’s ears, and saw the end of Swann, Mushy’s impact on the great team that had been was obvious for all to see. Certainly it was obvious to the Pakistan Cricket Board, who hired him almost immediately.

READ: YASIR SHAH ON THE IMPACT OF MUSHTAQ AHMED

So after England lost Mushy, why didn’t they hire a permanent replacement?

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There is no greater illustration of the impact a good specialist coach can have than England’s tour of India in 2016. England played three spinners in all five Tests, with Liam Dawson, Zafar Ansari and Gareth Batty rotating as the third to varying degrees of ineffectiveness.

But Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid were ever-presents, and for the first three Tests, they had another former Pakistan stalwart to bounce ideas off. Saqlain Mushtaq had spent a week with the team during the home series against Pakistan, but now he was getting a chance to work with a team on tour over multiple Tests. Well, two. This was later extended to three, seemingly due to positive feedback verging on pleading from Moeen and Rashid, but in one of his few obvious blunders as Director Cricket, Andrew Strauss did not see a permanent spin bowling coach as a priority.

Let’s have a look at how Moeen and Rashid performed while Saqlain was on hand and while he was not:

While Moeen struggled for impact throughout the series, Rashid was genuinely effective in the time Saqlain was with the England squad, and very much not afterwards:

We can add some further context to those startling numbers by comparing R Aswhin and Ravindra Jadeja’s performances over the same split (Tests 1-3 vs Tests 4-5). I’ve written before about how Ashwin and Jadeja outperform the global average for spinners in Asia by around 30%, so these are not just any spinners we’re setting as a benchmark.

This speaks so highly of Moeen & Rashid under Saqlain’s mentorship that I’m tempted to send this to him so he can put it on his CV. He helped Moeen & Rashid match Ashwin & Jadeja in India.

But while India’s lead spinners improved as the series went on, Moeen and Rashid were left to lead an increasingly impotent England attack without an expert’s tactical guidance and support. And these were not particularly spin-friendly conditions: the pitches were sufficiently true that England scored 400 in the 4th Test in Bombay and 477 in the 5th in Chennai, and most of Jadeja and Ashwin’s wickets were in the second innings when England had been chasing leather in the field for over two days (exacerbated of course by Moeen and Rashid’s diminished effectiveness).

One wonders how different things might have been had Saqlain been offered the permanent contract he was publicly courting.

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England did use Saqlain’s services again. Indeed, he was on England’s books for two years leading up to the triumphant 2019 World Cup. But the lessons of 2016 had not been fully learned: it was another consultancy role, covering just over a quarter of the year.

As well as the World Cup win, Saqlain was instrumental in the resurgence of Moeen Ali as a bowler after the disastrous 2017/18 Ashes tour. Recalled for the 2018 winter tour, Moeen combined brilliantly with Rashid and Jack Leach as England whitewashed Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka for the first time, and was effusive in his praise for Saqlain. “I now feel I know more about my bowling than ever,” Moeen said of the effects of his summer work with Saqlain after the first Test in Sri Lanka, going on to describe the former Pakistan off-spinner as “an absolute genius” and “so far ahead of the pack of the spinning coach.”

And yet, new director of cricket Ashley Giles has followed his predecessor’s lead. Jeetan Patel is on board only for the 5 T20Is vs New Zealand; another short-term consultant will be hired when England return to Sri Lanka in March 2020; and no replacement has yet been announced for Peter Such, who was recently sacked as the lead spin bowling coach at the National Performance Centre in Loughborough. The reported rationale of cost-cutting sits uneasily given the demonstrable impact of an expert coach, the £13.5 million per year England receive from the ICC before we even factor in TV rights deals and sponsorships, and the multi-millions being plowed into the Hundred - a board that is prepared to spend £6 million on event production for that tournament’s first year can surely stump up for full time spin bowling coaches.

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Rashid and the uncapped Matt Parkinson will doubtless benefit from the vast knowledge of Patel, who is intimately familiar with New Zealand conditions, has been the best spinner in county cricket for years, and probably still is with the exception of Simon Harmer and Ashwin. But there is no good reason why they and England’s other spinners, both with the senior squad and in junior and development groups, should not have such expertise at their disposal all year round.