England are set to name Eric Simons as the new bowling coach of the Test side – Stephen Fleming’s first appointment after replacing Brendon McCullum, and a man once described by Ben Stokes as the best bowling coach he had ever worked with.The 64-year-old Simons coached his native South Africa for two years until 2004, and later spent two years as a bowling consultant to the Indian national side, before working more recently with the South Africans. He has also worked at Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, where he worked closely with Fleming, before Fleming stepped down in July after 18 years with the franchise.Simons, who played the last of his 23 one-day internationals in 1995, will take over bowling duties from New Zealander Tim Southee, while the ECB intend to update their Test-match backroom staff sometime this week.His arrival will not affect Troy Cooley, the popular Australian who is the ECB’s elite national lead for pace bowling, and works across the whole of England’s performance programme. Eric Simons (right) worked with South Africa at the 2023 World CupSimons earned rave reviews from Stokes, who worked with him at the Rising Pune Supergiant IPL franchise in 2017, and described him as ‘the best bowling coach I ever worked with’. Stokes added: ‘I probably learned more in two months with him than I did in 10 years before that.’Simon’s first gig with as one of Fleming’s assistant coaches will be back in South Africa, whre England begin the first of three Tests, at Centurion, on December 17. Those who know him speak highly of his technical expertise and the strong personal relationships he forges with individual bowlers.