England are expected to confirm within the next week that Mark Ramprakash has leapfrogged his former Test and Surrey team-mate Graham Thorpe as the permanent successor to Graham Gooch as the senior batting coach.
Barring late contractual hitches Ramprakash will join Peter Moores and other members of the coaching staff for the one-day series in Sri Lanka followed by the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand early next year.
The 45-year-old, who joined the England coaching structure two years after Thorpe, in the autumn of 2012, worked regularly with the senior batsmen last summer after Moores and Alastair Cook had taken the decision – an especially painful one for the captain – to move on from Gooch.
Thorpe was the favourite to take over as he had already been working as batting coach in one-day cricket alongside Ashley Giles, having been appointed the England and Wales Cricket Board’s lead batting coach in October 2010. He remains reluctant to spend long periods abroad, meaning he will stay on in that role which is largely based at the national cricket performance centre at Loughborough, although he will also spend some time with the performance programme in Sri Lanka this month, and with the Lions in South Africa in the new year.
Another member of Giles’s coaching setup at the World Twenty20 this year, Paul Collingwood, will be working with Scotland at next year’s World Cup, which means pitting his wits against Moores and England in a group game in Christchurch on 23 February.
Collingwood first worked with Scotland last winter and was praised for his contribution to their successful qualifying campaign in New Zealand. Scotland feared they had lost him when he was appointed assistant to Giles for the World T20, specialising in fielding.
But when Giles missed out to Moores on the England job, the ECB also poached Paul Farbrace from Sri Lanka, leaving no room for Collingwood.
“It’s a great pleasure for me to be back on the coaching team with the Scotland squad for the 2015 World Cup,” said the 38-year-old, who recently signed a deal to play on for one more season with Durham. “I’m very much looking forward to working with them to help get the team fully prepared for these incredibly important matches.”
Grant Bradburn, the New Zealander who in April was appointed Scotland’s coach to lead their World Cup campaign, said: “We are fortunate to once again have the valuable services of Paul Collingwood on board with us. Paul will bring a calmness and confidence to our environment and is very familiar with all of our players having been a support coach with Scotland during the World Cup qualifiers in February.
“The World Cup will be a massive stage for our players to step out on to and release their vast natural skills. Having the experience of Paul in our corner will be a huge asset for all of us.”
