Former England batter and national selector, Ed Smith, has been appointed to the ECB board as a non-executive director.
Smith will replace Baroness Zahida Manzoor on October 1, 2026, after his term as MCC president concludes. News of his appointment was released almost exactly three years after he was made redundant by the ECB from his job as independent national selector, a role he fulfilled from April 2018-2021. His tenure saw England win the World Cup in 2019, but ended after they were beaten 4-1 in a Test series in India during the Covid-19 pandemic.
There is no suggestion that Smith's role will encompass selection responsibilities once again. The ECB are still on the hunt for a new national selector, after Luke Wright announced he was stepping down from the role in January. In a statement, the ECB said Smith's role as non-executive director "will provide scrutiny and challenge, looking at the long-term strategy and governance of the whole game, including performance cricket."
Smith was appointed as national selector as part of a restructuring of England's selection process following the 2017-18 Ashes series. He went on to make several controversial selection decisions, amid rumblings of a prickly relationship with players over his methods.
Of the numerous punts Smith took on players during his tenure, perhaps his most successful was recalling Jos Buttler as England's Test wicketkeeper. Only Joe Root played more Test matches under Smith's tenure than Buttler, and only Root and Stokes had higher batting averages during that period. While Buttler was eventually discarded following the 2021/22 Ashes series, the decision to recall him meant that England got the best out of Buttler as a Test cricketer during his prime years.
Smith was also the one who first brought Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley into the Test fold and, regardless of their current positions in the Test selection standings, both have gone on both to captain England and play leading roles in some of the side's most memorable successes over the last three years.
While those selections were the highlights of Smith's tenure, there were also some significant lows. Employing Jason Roy as a Test opener in 2019 stands out among these, as do his inconsistencies regarding other previously established names. During the first year of his tenure, he memorably suggested that Dawid Malan's batting technique may be more suited to overseas conditions after dropping him during England's series against India. Malan was one of the few England players to score a century in Australia in their post 2010/11 Ashes trips, but he only played two further Tests in England after he was dropped by Smith.
Equally, inconsistencies in the roles given to both Moeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow resulted in a lack of clarity in selection. The former played only 11 Tests under Smith's tenure, but only James Anderson and Stuart Broad took more wickets at a lower average for England during that period. As for Bairstow, he batted at every position from No.3 to No.7 under Smith.
There were other selection calls Smith made that came off with varying degrees of success, mostly fitting somewhere between outright failure and genius bolt from the blue. Sam Curran made his Test debut during Smith's tenure, and he started with a bang, winning the Player of the Series award in a 4-1 win against India in his first summer, making a succession of crucial interventions with bat and ball. While England have never quite found the right fit for him, he's accrued 138 caps since his debut. Nevertheless, it was the decision to back Curran over Stuart Broad in the West Indies in 2019 that was the call Smith got most catastrophically wrong.
There were other bold calls that were more mixed, like bringing Adil Rashid back into the Test fold, and Smith had the complexities of a global pandemic to deal with for his last year in the job. Ben Foakes also currently fits into the category of players selected by Smith who never quite nailed down their spot. There's also the likes of Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, and Olly Stone, Dom Bess and Joe Denly.
Smith's biggest success, however, as national selector was the wider network he established to inform selection. While he had a penchant for a rogue pick, the same accusations which Brendon McCullum has faced over England selection being a 'closed shop' couldn't be levied at Smith's time in charge. Perhaps, this new job, where his influence won't be felt quite so confrontingly with players, is where his influence can be used most effectively.
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
