Mark Butcher has thrown his hat in the ring for England's new National Selector role, but has said no one from the ECB has contacted him about the position.
Butcher was linked to the role in The Times last week, alongside the likes of Moeen Ali and Steven Finn. England are hiring a new National Selector as part of their post-Ashes review, after Luke Wright stepped down from the role over the winter. The ECB said that the successful candidate "will be accountable for the selection of players" and also be involved in ensuring quality communication between the England team and first-class counties.
Speaking on Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Butcher said: "I would be interested, yeah. The very nature of my job is that I watch a lot of cricket, see a lot of cricketers and get to speak to a lot of coaches during the course of the year so why not? But nobody has spoken to me."
The role is set to be a key part of the changes England will make to their selection process over the summer, particularly in improving the relationship between the national team and the counties. Last week, Surrey head coach Gareth Batty said that the pathways from the counties to England selection had been 'misted over', with players unsure of what they needed to do to win selection.
Butcher: McCullum and Key are lucky to have survived
ECB chief executive, Richard Gould, and managing director of men's cricket, Rob Key, held a press conference yesterday (March 23), where they confirmed there would be no major sackings following the Ashes defeat. Brendon McCullum will retain his role as head coach across all England men's formats, while Key will also remain in post. Key also said that he didn't want to see a "massive change of style" from McCullum's second act, despite criticism over the environment McCullum presided over during the winter.
"They [McCullum and Key] are lucky to have survived it," said Butcher. "And they're not going to have very much leeway with people because I'm not sure that the vast majority of the cricket-watching public are going to agree with that decision."
Calls for McCullum and Key's sackings reached their crescendo after the final Ashes Test in Sydney, but dissipated during the T20 World Cup. England reached the semi-final where they were defeated by India, but several successful selection decisions – including picking Will Jacks and Sam Curran – boosted their standing.
"Had that [T20 World Cup] not run straight after we might be talking about a different outcome," said Butcher. "Nobody that I have run into in the last month has forgotten the Ashes, it's the first thing that anyone brings up whenever you bump into whoever it might be.
"Some people, your Test match cricket fans, are not wanting to forgive and forget what happened over the winter. Largely because the expectations were so high, and rightly so, that we could actually go down there and win the Ashes away from home ... Then of course you add on top of that all of the stories about drinking and being out late and the preparation, or lack of it, in the lead-up, it's kind of all built up into a genuine dislike of, not the England team but this England set-up.
"The fact that they've been given the opportunity to carry on will annoy the people that I'm talking about – the diehard fans – but it also means that they begin this next phase of these six Test matches over the summer with virtually no credit in the bank. It will not take very much for the cricket-watching public to turn vehemently against them.
Despite that criticism, Butcher voiced his support for the decision to retain the Key-McCullum leadership duo: "From my point of view, I think it's the right thing with conditions. At the end of that Sydney Test match I was all for sacking everyone. But now, given a little bit of time – things need to change, attitudes need to change, messaging needs to change, the relationship between the England team and the county game needs to change – there are a lot of things that need to change. But there are also a lot of good things which have happened ever since the one win in 17 that was the regime before the McCullum-Key one. So bare that in mind a little bit."
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