Andrew Strauss to take time off from England as his wife battles cancer

Andrew Strauss is to take indefinite leave as the England team director while his wife has treatment for cancer.

He will be replaced by Andy Flower, the former England head coach, and is not expected to return to work again this summer.

Strauss informed the England players of his decision at Lord’s on Tuesday as they prepared for the first Test against Pakistan.

“My wife was diagnosed with cancer in December. We are very lucky she has been very well up to now, although she is starting a new treatment on Friday which is going to more challenging for her and I am going to be stepping back from my day to day duties while that treatment is going on,” he said.

“On a day-to-day basis, Andy Flower is going to be stepping in for me over the course of the summer. We all know about his qualities and his experience of both England and English cricket and he will fill my shoes very adequately. I look forward to returning and grabbing the reigns again but, at this period of time, my focus has to be on supporting Ruth and my family at a challenging time for us.”

Strauss also announced the appointment of six new scouts to help Ed Smith, the new national selector, including Strauss’s old opening partner from the 2005 Ashes, Marcus Trescothick. All six have played international cricket and five made their England debuts in this century as Smith looks to his own generation for advice.

Trescothick is the only current player on the scouting panel but two county head coaches, Richard Dawson from Gloucestershire and Lancashire’s Glen Chapple, are part of Smith’s new team. Recently retired England batsman James Taylor has also landed a role along with former England and Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper Chris Read. Steve Rhodes, who lost his job at Worcestershire as head coach last year for failing to inform the club that one of the players had been charged with rape, is the oldest member of Smith’s scouting network. Smith is still to appoint a second, full-time selector.

“The idea is for us to get better information on all the players playing in county cricket. This is not what some people think it is around loads of data and statistics. This is about getting qualitative information on what England’s needs are,” said Strauss. “They will be compiling reports on players of interest to us but those involved with counties won’t be compiling reports on their own players. It is about formalising a process that has been going on in a more ad hoc way before.”

Strauss met with the England team in the morning and confirmed the midnight curfew, introduced on the Ashes tour, remains in place. He also reminded the players of how they are expected to behave on international duty as he looks to continue to hold a strong line on discipline after two boozy off-field incidents in Australia. The curfew was not popular with some senior players when it was introduced but the England management believe there was an improved focus and intensity towards the end of the New Zealand tour as lessons from the Ashes started to sink in.

“We have learned a lot of lessons over the winter. We have sharpened up with the way we deal with things. Players are clear about what is expected of them while on England duty and I reaffirmed that today when I spoke to the players,” said Strauss. “It [curfew] is one thing the players got used to over the course of the winter. We are a high-performance environment and guys being professional about how they prepare for games is not something that should be frowned upon, it should be expected of players.”

Strauss has spent three months reviewing England’s winter, focusing on how they improve overseas and will deliver a strategy to the ECB board over the next “nine to 12 months” that he said will have to include “radical proposals” if the team are to regain No 1 status in Test cricket.

The ECB made a loss last year of £30.2 million which followed a deficit of £37.3 million in 2016, meaning reserves have dropped to £8.6 million from a high of £73.1 million two years ago.

The cricket economy is cyclical and the ECB makes profit in summers when India and Australia are touring thanks to huge rises in the value of overseas television rights and expect to make profits this year and next thanks to the World Cup, an Ashes series and this summer’s India tour.

The losses will have no impact on the England budget and Strauss admitted he is considering splitting the head coach role when Trevor Bayliss leaves at the end of next summer.

“There is definitely an opportunity to look at that a bit more creatively. It is very hard for one coach to coach all formats. It is possible and most other teams go down that route but we play more cricket than anyone else, and that is something we will definitely be looking at as part of that process.”