Hussey Snubbed England for Australia, and His First Job Is Beating England

Last month we wrote that Stephen Fleming had taken two of CSK's coaching staff for England and missed a third. The third was Mike Hussey. On Friday, Cricket Australia told us where he went instead.

Hussey is now Australia's coaching consultant for the 2027 Ashes and the 2027 ODI World Cup. He is also their T20 advisor for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and the 2028 T20 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. That's four major events in about two years, all for one man who until now could only spare Australia a week before the Perth Test each summer.

Then there's his first assignment: the upcoming T20I series against England. The country he turned down is the first team he'll be trying to beat. You couldn't script it better.

CA's statement is all warm words. The scoreboard behind it isn't. Australia have just lost a Test series 2-1 in South Africa. In the Cape Town decider they were bowled out for 111 chasing 288, and they were 60 for 7 at lunch on the final day. That defeat knocked them off the top of the Test rankings. David Warner called it "un-Australian" on air.

Marnus Labuschagne has now gone 49 Test innings without a century. The batting group that, in Warner's words, "let the bowlers down all series" now gets a specialist batting brain added to the staff. That isn't a coincidence.

Officially, though, Hussey's brief is mainly T20. That's the clever part. CA is fixing the urgent problem (Test batting before an Ashes) and the long-term one (an Olympic gold that Australian sport badly wants) with a single appointment.

The last time Hussey worked on a T20 World Cup, he helped England win one. He was in Matthew Mott's coaching group in 2022, when England beat Pakistan in the final at the MCG. That's on Australian soil, and Australia went out of their own home tournament in the group stage.

So Australia have now hired the man who helped England win in Australia, to help Australia win in Australia. And he'll start by working against England. If the ECB is annoyed, it has kept quiet about it.

It also explains the T20 focus. Hussey's T20 CV is the best part of his coaching résumé. Beyond that 2022 title, he has spent years as CSK's batting coach and coaches Welsh Fire in the Hundred. Most Australian assistant coaches haven't spent this much time inside franchise T20 dressing rooms.

McDonald is resting for the England T20Is, as he has for many T20 series over the past three years. Andre Borovec takes a young squad, and Hussey arrives to work alongside him. That's the real test of the appointment. Can Hussey's influence shape a T20 group while the head coach spends most of the next 12 months on a heavy Test schedule?

Ben Oliver, CA's head of national teams, says Hussey will "work closely with team management, coaches and selectors" on T20 planning even when he isn't with the team. The word selectors matters there. It means Hussey has a say in who gets picked for LA 2028, not only how they bat.

The open questions are commentary and the IPL. Hussey's broadcasting and CSK commitments are exactly what limited him to short stints before. CA hasn't said what he's giving up. If he stays in the CSK dugout in March and April 2027, the "formal and meaningful role" will have to fit around the IPL calendar.

It's a smart hire, made for the right reasons and a bit late. Australia's Test batting has needed a voice like his for two summers. Their T20 side has never had a long-term Olympic plan, so CA is buying both at once.

For England, the bigger blow is losing the man, not the T20Is. Fleming knew exactly how good Hussey is, because he spent years beside him in the Chennai dugout. He asked, and Hussey chose home. In an Ashes year, that tells you something.