Of those willing to take on what Duncan Fletcher described as the toughest coaching job in world cricket, England have got the best man available. While that says much for the respect won by Andy Flower in his short time as a coach, it also reflects poorly on the standard of applicants in a field that cut down more quickly than the Grand National. Flower was the last man standing and now has a job that, until a few months ago, he was almost certain he did not want.

The ECB was eager to emphasise the competition Flower faced when it revealed yesterday that there had been 30 applicants for the role of team director (although that was the limit to the openness and transparency of this “open and transparent process”). But by the time Odgers Ray and Berndtson - the firm of headhunters employed by the board to prevent the accusations of cosiness that followed the appointment of Flower's predecessor, Peter Moores - had sifted through the unqualified, the unsuitable and inexperienced, there were precious few left to be interviewed.

The "interrogation" panel that included Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket, Dennis Amiss, the deputy chairman of the ECB, and Angus Fraser, Middlesex's newly installed director of cricket, are known to have spoken over the phone to John Wright, the former coach of India, now employed by New Zealand, and to Flower. That, it is suspected, was the limit of their workload.

This lack of competition to a man who has, after all, less experience than any other previous England coach is worrying on two fronts. The Indian Premier League (IPL) threatens to remove the top tier of coaches from the international game. Someone such as Tom Moody, who quickly withdrew his name from the process, can now top up his coaching salary to international levels through a six-week stint in the IPL, while suffering none of the effects of the extended time away from his family that an international job would bring. Also, where are all the home-grown candidates who should emerge out of the 18-team first-class structure in England?

It means that England now have a team director with precious little experience of coaching or managing at any level of the game. His only experience is limited to the post-Fletcher period, when neither the performances of England's batsmen nor the team suggest that Flower has the magic touch. At least, under his tutelage as batting coach, the statistics of most of England's leading batsmen have held steady. And because it is easier for a coach to ruin a player than make him better, at least that is some consolation.

If his coaching credentials are non-existent, then it was during the tour to the West Indies that signs began to emerge that his approach to the management of England players would have a greater chance of bearing fruit than his predecessor's. The axe, whose edge had dulled so infrequently was it used under Moores, began to be sharpened again and actually put to some use, so that poor performances were properly scrutinised and poor performers punished. Ian Bell, Monty Panesar, Samit Patel and Stephen Harmison should be itching to prove their worth to their new boss, which should increase competition within the set-up.

Ultimately it will be how Flower treads this fine line between hard-nosed boss and agony aunt - ie, his management not his coaching skills - that will determine how successful or otherwise his stint will be. Although Andrew Strauss and Flower did well to stem the bleeding of discontent that poured out after the removal of the Moores/Kevin Pietersen scab, there were enough rumblings throughout the tour to the West Indies to know that the England squad is still a long way from being the happy group it was before the last time Australia visited these shores. Flower's relationships with Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, the alpha males of the dressing-room, will be crucial.

In management terms, Flower faces challenges that no other England coach has had to endure, principally the effects of the IPL. The England dressing-room has always been a place of relative haves and have-nots, but not as blatantly as it is now. It will take a good deal of skilful manoeuvring to ensure that his best players are adequately rested for the challenges ahead without curtailing their opportunities, and to make certain that the inevitable jealousies do not fester.

He begins his term in one of the most critical years for English cricket in recent memory, a year when the spotlight will be turned on the national team both because of the enticing nature of the contests - the Ashes, World Twenty20 - and because there are no other sporting distractions. It is critical, therefore, that he stamps his authority quickly. Big decisions have to be made - and soon. Should Michael Vaughan be recalled? Who will captain England's Twenty20 team (pray not Shaun Udal)? Is Strauss the right man to lead England's 50-overs team?

Every new coach starts with a fund of goodwill, but Flower especially so because he is demonstrably such a decent, straightforward fellow. In the Caribbean, problems were answered directly, in plain speaking rather than management gobbledegook, even if he was understandably wary. As well as this goodwill, Flower can call upon that most valuable of commodities for anyone in the sporting world: respect.

He can, from his former vantage point at the top of the world batting rankings, look any England player in the eye and as a human being, too, because his time in Zimbabwe showed him to be a bigger man than any now under his command. While question marks remain over his coaching credentials, that is a decent place from which to start.