Coup as Marsh heads the English academy

Hugh Morris, the England and Wales Cricket Board's performance director, says that the man chosen to run English cricket's new National Academy is "the most appropriate person in the world to do this job". Only Rod Marsh meets that exacting standard, and the ECB have indeed enticed him to join the list of foreign coaches running English sports bodies. The present director of the Australian National Academy is to become director of the English National Academy on a three-year contract in October. "I am delighted," says Morris. As well he might be. The appointment is a coup.

Marsh's credentials are impeccable. He was a fine Test player, keeping wicket for Australia between 1970 and 1984, and holding the record for the highest number of Test dismissals, until Ian Healy beat it. He became director of the academy in Adelaide 10 years ago and has presided over a coaching revolution which has secured and sustained Australia's pre-eminent position in world cricket. Players like Glenn McGrath, who went to the Academy as youngsters, speak highly of his skill and respectfully of his disciplinary regime.

Marsh, 53, signed up in Adelaide last Wednesday, and he has already been told what is expected of him. England are to become number one in the world rankings by 2007, the same year in which they are to win the World Cup. This superiority is to be maintained until 2010-11. By 2007 as many as 95 per cent of the England team ought to be graduates of the academy. These intimidating and faintly ridiculous targets are the work of Sport England, the distributor of Lottery money. Since they are financing the academy, a few hostages to fortune are a small price to pay. The academy's budget of just over £500,000 a year comes out of Sport England's £2m-a-year grant to support the ECB's World Class Plan.

Recruitment of the first group of 16 students who will spend this winter in Australia, will be drawn from county teams. They will be aged between 19 and 23, they will be paid, and they can return. Besides being taught how to bat and bowl, they will learn about life and style – items such as what to eat, what not to drink and how to talk to journalists. The ECB's plan is to base the academy at Bisham Abbey, but severe planning problems are causing delays (besides being a protected building the grounds contain an ancient burial site) and alternatives are being considered.

Marsh's appointment is the long-awaited signal that English cricket has embraced excellence. Marsh's real target is to produce an elite of 20 very good Test and one-day international players in seven years. "The more people you have at the base, the stronger a nation becomes," he says. As the new jargon has it: "The objective is to make England cricketers rather than cricketers who play for England." Language is being used to change the mind-set of young English players. They are talking about toughness and dedication. Marsh wants to take good young English cricketers by the scuff of the neck and turn them into Test players.

The names of a number of candidates spring to mind: James Foster of Essex and Mark Wallace of Glamorgan, both wicketkeepers; Robert Key of Kent, Laurence Prittipaul of Hampshire; three Somerset players, Matthew Bulbeck, Peter Trego and Matthew Wood; Ian Bell of Warwickshire, Kabir Ali of Worcestershire, Nathan Dumelow of Derbyshire, Michael Gough of Durham, and Steve Kirby of Yorkshire. All are 23 and under.

In the past decade promising cricketers were chosen for the A team and toured in the winter. Some A team players used these tours as a stage on their way to the England team – Mark Butcher and Ian Ward for example. But many places were wasted and some talent was squandered. The A team is history. The academy squad will meet in October at Sandhurst for a week of preparation before making for Adelaide. In Australia the squad will play four four-day games against State second teams and appear in a couple of one-day tournaments.

The National Academy will be at the apex of a structure based on age, beginning with Under-13s, and location; eight county academies have been accredited to the national scheme to identify children who will be potential recruits to the National Academy when they leave school. Coaches will be trained at the Academy too, by Marsh and his assistants, John Abraham, the former Lancashire player who has coached the England Under-19 team, and Nigel Lawton, who was the ECB's European cricket development manager.

Marsh says: "It excites me to think that we can have a strong England team as a result, hopefully, of some of my labours." If he pulls it off, it will excite us all.