Chris Silverwood back in the county game and aiming to repeat Essex success story

Silverwood is back at Essex after eight years away, the Chelmsford-based county turned to their former head coach after Anthony McGrath departed in October to take over at Yorkshire.

Pontefract-born Silverwood may have spent the majority of his playing career for his home county – he was at Headingley from 1993-2005 – but he now regards Essex as “home” and a place where he is keen to build on an outstanding previous stint there as coach when he guided Essex to promotion in 2016 before securing the County Championship title a year later.

The 49-year-old has been on a journey since then with a difficult spell as England head coach followed by two years leading Sri Lanka. He was tempted to return to the domestic scene when he received a call from Essex late last year with his former assistant McGrath having headed back north.

Even though Silverwood last made major headlines for being dismissed by England following a Covid-19 disrupted 4-0 Ashes series defeat three years ago, he holds no grudges and is in no doubt he is a better person for it.

“There’s always things you’re going to look back on and say we could have done that differently. Would I have taken on so much? Probably not,” said Silverwood.

“At the time you do things for what you think are the right reasons and you learn from them, so I don’t hold any animosity or any grudges, or anything like that.

“You put it down to experience. Has it helped me grow as a person? Yes. Has it helped me grow as a coach? Definitely. And the lessons I’ve learned, when I went to Sri Lanka, again, I was able to put them in place as well.

“As I said when I exited England, I’m still an England fan. I still want them to do well.”

England’s aggressive ‘Bazball’ style has taken the nation by storm since Silverwood was replaced by Brendon McCullum in the summer of 2022.

Silverwood has enjoyed the bold philosophy from afar and also taken pride in the fact players he gave Test debuts to – Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley – have flourished under the leadership of Ben Stokes and McCullum.

He added: “Obviously the two guys that came in, Ben as captain and Baz, they put their character on there and it worked so good on them.

“Did we enjoy watching it? Absolutely. We enjoyed watching, I think everybody did, but equally, we have to understand that you go to Australia, you go to India like they have now, they’re tough places to play cricket.”

Silverwood played for Yorkshire from 1993 to 2005, helping them to the County Championship in 2001 and the one-day Cheltenham and Gloucester trophy a year later.

In 131 first-class appearances for the club, he took 427 wickets at an average of 26.72, with best figures of 7-93 against Kent at Headingley in 1997.

In 166 one-day games, Silverwood bagged 224 wickets at 23.26, with a best of 5-28 against Scotland at Headingley in 1996 in the B&H Cup.

He also took seven wickets in nine T20 appearances.

Silverwood also bowled for England during his time at Headingley, playing six Test matches, making his debut against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in December 1996.

His best figures came when he took 5-91 against South Africa in Cape Town in January 2000. He also played seven one-day internationals

In terms of his coaching involvement with the nationalk set-up, he has long moved on from dwelling on what if and while he was dealt a bad hand with his tenure affected by the coronavirus pandemic following a fine 3-1 Test series win in South Africa, the immediate task for Essex’s new director of cricket is to better his first spell.

That will not be easy given Silverwood guided Essex to back-to-back red-ball titles, which was followed by further silverware under his old No 2 McGrath, but the Yorkshireman has a twinkle in his eye again.

“From a personal development point of view, Sri Lanka was superb and it came at a good time as well off the back of England and everything,” added Silverwood.

“You say I am a proud Yorkshireman, but Essex is home and it has been for a long time now. My kids are all born down here.

“For me, it is coming home. This is my home, so I’m very proud to be back. I’m obviously proud to have the involvement I did last time, but to come back and get to help again, I’m very proud.

“I am proud of the system we left that works but equally I am proud of the fact Mags picked it up and ran with it. He continued to drive what we put in place and we have punched well above our weight.

“What we have to do now is make sure we continue to do that for many years to come.”