David Gower believes finding a suitable replacement for sacked England coach Peter Moores could prove a difficult process due to the lack of viable candidates.
Moores was dismissed on Tuesday following a public falling out with Kevin Pietersen, who resigned from his post on the same day, leaving England with only a matter of weeks to appoint a successor before the squad depart for a tour of the West Indies.
Moody: overlooked
Gower, who captained England form 1982-86 before returning for another spell in 1989, told Sky Sports News the ECB might regret not giving the job to former Australian batsman Tom Moody following Duncan Fletcher's resignation in 2007 rather than promote Moores from his role of National Cricket Centre director.
He said: "I think we missed our chance when Peter Moores was appointed, with all due rapidity it seemed to me despite his very good qualifications, that there were other people around at the time like Tom Moody who I'm not even sure was interviewed.
There aren't that many people around with the right qualifications so we have to start trying to make the best of a bad situation.
David Gower.
Quotes of the week
"Tom had a lot of respect in the international community from his work with Sri Lanka, he is a good man and did have international experience as a player and would have been a good choice to take the job on then.
"But as far as I know he is no longer available but is happily ensconced in Western Australia, coaching that side and wants to bring up his children there so I think he is probably out of that picture.
"And then you start going err, err, err I don't know who because there aren't that many people around with the right qualifications so we have to start trying to make the best of a bad situation."
Command
Although critics of the current England set-up claim the structure contains too many levels of management, Gower believes it is necessary to appoint a new head coach to ensure the squad pulls in the same direction.
"There have been a lot of additions to the backroom staff in recent years; I'm not against those, as such, they've all got a role to play but the key question is who commands all of that?" asked Gower.
"I would say the captain is the most important man in the jigsaw - for instance, I know from my own experience that if you don't have a coach with whom you can see eye-to-eye you have to try to lay down a working relationship.
"If you look at other countries, they have working relationships between strong captains and coaches. Australia used to have John Buchanan, who was subordinate to the captain, South Africa have Mickey Arthur whose stock is very high at the moment but he is also subordinate to a very strong captain in Graham Smith.
"Two very different characters are running a South African team beautifully that any moment they could be the No 1 side in the world. Perhaps we should start looking to South Africa for some guidance as to the right type of structure."
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