Marks out 10. For me he gets an 8 or possibly a 9.
He has been through the highs and low with England and the team he helped bring about in 2004- 2005 was the most exciting England team I have seen.

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

I'll give him some credit for the progress of the test team, but very, very seriously mitigated by the woeful performance in Australia last winter. In the ODI format, it's difficult to see what credit there is to give. I'm afraid the overall rating is lower from me than from you, John, and by quite a bit. He suffers somewhat from retiring on the fall rather than at the peak, but he leaves as the coach who lost the Ashes 5-0 for the first time in 85 years or so and as a coach (one of a few) who took England nowhere on the ODI stage. It's four or five out of ten, I'm afraid, and could have been so much more without the recent debacles.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Those are good points you make.
All I can say the English don't care for the one day so he was following orders.
I expect a book will be out at some stage by Duncan and an interesting it will be.He is the first foreign coach and therefore should not have the attachments that people like LLoyd had. So hopefully he will blow the whistle on a few things.
For one thing there were rumours that for the Ashes he personally argued for Strauss as capitain but was overuled.

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

I'll miss him.

We should have just got a separate ODI coach and kept Fletcher for Tests.

I think 8 years is too long for a coach in any field of any sport.. specially a man his age. Duncan did some good things for england, yes they lost the ashes 5-0 under him, but they won the ashes under him also so its not all bad. Hopefully the England management will pick a younger more forward thinking coach for the future.

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Sort of. You're right that England's supporters are less enamoured of the one day game than some other nations'. And I am one of the less enamoured and have made no secret of that here. But within the England camp I am sure that ODI success matters just as much as it would anywhere else, even if only for commercial reasons. For that reason alone, the coach has to be assessed on his performance in that department just as much as he would be for test match performances. If Fletcher disregarded ODI performance (and I am not for a moment suggesting that he did), he might have been following public sentiment among England's supporters, but I doubt very much that that would have been the order from the English game's administrators.

In one way I feel sorry for Duncan Fletcher: as has been mentioned above, he took England to their first Ashes win for 18 years - that deserves credit. Unfortunately for him (and he will not be alone, although Michael Vaughan as a "non-playing captain" will escape this criticism), the more recent humiliation of the Ashes whitewash will outlive that performance. It's tough at the top, and even tougher when you fall from the top. The World Cup performance, and especially the awful display against South Africa, only detract from the overall impression of Fletcher's eight years, I fear.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Exactly - I know England lost 5-0 to the powerful Aussie's, but lets be fair - the England team was depleted before they flew from England.
Trouble with Fletcher going is that he is carrying the can, and glossing over the real cracks in the England set up.

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Ern

But if Fletcher's departure is seen as the first stage of the refreshment of the side, Ern, it needn't be a simple glossing over. I would hope that the new coach will, like a new broom, sweep clean - i.e. he will force some changes. I'm not sure that it is necessary for the outgoing coach to take people with him or for the administrators to force people out en masse: the extent of change, to some extent, will be a measure of the strength of the new coach.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

True to a point OF, but I think too many people are guarenteed a place in the England side.

The ending of central contracts would be a better option to mass sacking, picking players on form - rather than have a core that gets a place - in form or not.

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Ern

Yes, but elsewhere I have argued that the selection of the side should not be a matter for the coach in any case. We've seen a change of coach (partially) announced; a strong coach should now hopefully be identifying a fresh pool of talent which he wishes to coach - with some new names in it and some familiar names out of it. The (independent) selectors can pick a side from that new pool. Central contracts could continue (although I am not sure they should) without necessarily implying automatic selection. Certainly no-one should be guaranteed a place in the side. Ever.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan