Hampshire’s cricketers have given Duncan Fletcher the thumbs up.

The former England head coach spent a fortnight with the Hampshire players on their pre-season trip to Cape Town last month.

It was his first stint as the county’s new consultant.

Fletcher met most of Hampshire’s squad for the first time but was reunited with John Crawley and Chris Tremlett, whose England careers stalled under the Zimbabwean’s leadership.

Crawley and Tremlett both believe they benefited from fresh Fletcher insight.

Crawley, who played nine of his 37 Tests under Fletcher before his England career ended six years ago, enjoyed the reunion.

He said: “I was disappointed with how my England career ended. It was a bitter disappointment at the time, but that’s a long time ago now and you can’t turn back time.

“Duncan was there every day and it went well. He was on very good form and very relaxed.

“The consultancy role is very different to what Duncan had with England, and I think he probably prefers it in a lot of ways, where he’s working on theories to try and get players to improve.

“Everyone can learn from him.”

Fletcher honed his consultancy skills with South Africa during the Proteas’ Test series against Australia, before joining Hampshire in Cape Town.

Crawley continued: “Duncan always has a few good theories and it was up to us to pick out what worked for us as individuals.

“We generally worked together as a group with him, sometimes the batsmen and sometimes the bowlers, but we could also work with him individually and he came up with a lot of interesting stuff.”

Tremlett was a perennial England 12th man under Fletcher, making his Test debut two months after Peter Moores replaced him as head coach two years ago But Hampshire’s bowling spearhead was also impressed.

“I had mixed feelings about him coming over here but don’t hold grudges and it was brilliant, actually,” he said. “He’s got a great cricket mind and I spoke to him on a few occasions about bowling, batting and fielding. He had some real good ideas about how to help my game.

“It was very positive. He spoke mainly about batting but the tips I’ve used seem to have worked so hopefully I’ll get lots of runs this year!

“Hopefully he can help us on to big things. I’m sure he’ll throw some more ideas around when he comes over to assess things in the summer.”

Billy Taylor was one of several Hampshire players who had never worked with Fletcher before the pre-season trip.

“He’s one of those characters where, if you were in a boardroom of a company trying to come up with a new idea of how to make £1m, you’d come up with a lot of ideas that are out of the box,” explained Taylor.

“He’s not black and white and his ideas wouldn’t work for all of us but some will work really well for certain individuals.

“It was interesting to know what he might have done as England coach. It was quite refreshing and the perfect time to get people thinking. He’s going to be a good character to have around.

“He offers a new dimension and gets people to use their minds a bit more. It was good to get those conversations going.

“All of us need to improve five per cent a season, no one can rest on their laurels no matter how much Test or first-class cricket we’ve played.”

Batsman Michael Lumb added: “Duncan fitted in really well, I’ve taken on a couple of things he suggested to do with my batting stance and catching technique.”

See today's Daily Echo to read Kevin Pietersen's defence of his IPL stint.