“We had a joint focus on taking the team forward,” he wrote. “Fordy would do everything he could to make a player be the best they could; me included. If you were out of nick, he’d throw at you in the nets until it got dark to try to get you back into form. Because of our shared attitude to betterment, we never really had a clash.”
Key is widely expected to split the head coach’s role in two by appointing separate coaches for Test and white-ball cricket. Ford was frustrated by Ireland’s sparse fixture list in Test cricket during his time as coach, and ESPNcricinfo understands that he would be interested in discussing the red-ball format role with England.
Ford has stayed in Ireland since leaving his role as head coach, and is currently coaching YMCA CC in Dublin. He expects to qualify for Irish citizenship later this year, but it is understood that he would be willing to delay that process if necessary.
The Daily Mail has reported that Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene have ruled themselves out of contention, while several newspapers linked Simon Katich with the Test role on Saturday. Gary Kirsten, Tom Moody and Paul Collingwood are among the various other contenders.