Michael Hussey rejects England Test batting coach role for part-time Cricket Australia deal

Michael Hussey has rejected the chance to become England’s Test batting coach in favour of a part‑time deal with Cricket Australia.

The former Australia batter held talks last month with Stephen Fleming, England’s new Test head coach, about joining his backroom team but is understood to have opted to stay in Australia in a boost for Pat Cummins’s side before the Ashes next year.

Hussey is believed to have accepted Cricket Australia’s offer of a consultancy role as it gives him the flexibility to continue with existing commitments, such as coaching in the Hundred and other franchise tournaments, as well as commentary and punditry work for Fox Sports in Australia.

The 51‑year‑old was Welsh Fire’s head coach in the Hundred this year and has worked as a batting coach for Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League.

Fleming worked closely with Hussey during 18 years at CSK as a player and coach which ended this year, but he has been unable to persuade him to join England.

Hussey coached England on a part‑time consultant contract during their victorious T20 World Cup campaign in 2022, but a full-time role as Test batting coach would have been far more onerous given this winter features tours to South Africa, Bangladesh and Australia before the home Ashes series next summer.

Australia’s Test schedule is just as intense, but Hussey will be allowed to fit his coaching duties around other commitments.

Fleming will be permitted to continue searching for a batting coach, although the England and Wales Cricket Board may opt to retain Marcus Trescothick, who has impressed in a caretaker role in the current Test series against Pakistan.

If Trescothick stays with the Test team the ECB could opt to appoint a new head of batting coaching across all their development teams.

Cricket Australia and the ECB declined to comment.

The former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, meanwhile, has resigned from the national selection committee after the decision on Monday to drop seven players and change coaches two-thirds through the team’s Test series against England.

It has emerged that after those decisions were announced by the Pakistan Cricket Board they contacted selectors seeking written explanations for some of their picks, including those of Imam-ul-Haq, who having started the second game spent most of it off the field nursing a calf injury, and the wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan.

Rizwan’s selection did not seem controversial: he is Pakistan’s third-highest run-scorer of the past decade, was second in their scoring charts in 2024 and 2025, and Babar Azam is now the only Pakistani batter above him in the International Cricket Council rankings.

But his keeping was criticised during the Lord’s Test last week, and during the first game against Bangladesh in May – one of the side’s five defeats in six Tests this year – the Bangladesh wicketkeeper Litton Das was overheard saying: “His reputation is bad in his country. If he tries to hit and gets out, he won’t be able to enter his country. His reputation is really bad.”

The decision to overhaul the squad mid-series has been widely criticised in Pakistan. Shahid Afridi wrote that he was “not sure what is the logic or reasoning behind the decision” and that “the replacements make no sense”. Shoaib Malik, like Afridi a former Test captain, wrote that “accountability should start with those who broke the system, not with players”, adding that “such mental stress” would cause “the fear of failure [to] settle in the minds of our players”.