LORD’S — The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have been busy with their bottle of Mr Sheen and J-cloths attempting to polish the unmentionable since the 4-1 Ashes hammering in Australia.
Now, having chosen to hold nobody accountable for the car crash Down Under, instead choosing to “adapt and evolve”, everybody’s head is on the chopping block come next year’s home Ashes.
Coach Brendon McCullum, managing director Rob Key and ECB chief executive Richard Gould are all in it together. They will all be equally culpable, too, if England fail to win back the urn next summer for the first time in 12 years.
It follows the conclusion of an Ashes review that seemingly placed more weight on McCullum’s use of a walkie-talkie during the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka in January than overseeing a generationally bad tour of Australia.
The axis of Stokes (left) and McCullum creaked in Australia (Photo: PA)McCullum’s helming of a loose team environment that allowed a drinking culture to develop – and get so bad the white-ball captain Harry Brook was punched by a bouncer the night before an ODI in Wellington – has been seemingly overlooked. The midnight curfew enacted after the Ashes was a fig leaf.
But the poor preparation, tactics and breakdown in relationship between Test captain Ben Stokes and McCullum in Australia will be a lot harder to move past. The pair are understood to have since re-aligned their thinking but when the pressure cranks up again what’s saying those fissures won’t reopen?
‘Informal vs casual’
The loyalty shown by Gould in keeping both Key and McCullum in place is admirable. But the reasoning is almost laughable, especially when it comes to the retention of the coach.
Take this snippet from Monday’s media briefing at Lord’s. “Brendon’s talked quite a lot about informal versus casual,” said Gould. “I think sometimes when he’s sat watching the games and you sometimes make comments about seeing the soles of his feet, you may take the impression he’s very casual, whereas that’s not what we see.
“There is a big brain that is working through every decision and every action. And I think when you look at the white-ball series [in Sri Lanka] in terms of the interactions on pitch, walkie-talkies, trying to affect decisions and changes as the match is going on, and trying to make sure we can adapt to what’s being done to us or with us on the pitch.
“We have to adapt because we’re always facing an opposition team that is trying to find our weak spots. So we have to shape-shift at times.”
Rob Key (right) and McCullum are at the top of England’s cricketing ladder (Photo: AFP)Again, Gould’s loyalty is admirable but what the actual? It seems McCullum’s use of a walkie-talkie was perhaps the most impactful since John McClane in Die Hard. Big brain indeed.
There’s more. Take this from Key. “I wouldn’t underestimate some of the pain we’ve been through. I know people want punishment and from what it looks like people then should be sacked. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel like we’ve gone through some serious pain. Brendon, myself, Ben, it’s been as tough a time as I think I’ve had.”
Forget the fans who spent their life savings travelling to watch that dross Down Under. Will somebody not think of the handsomely paid ECB employees responsible for the whole shooting match?
Of course England didn’t mean to lose the Ashes. Defeats happen. They can be forgiven, too, if it seems everybody was genuinely giving their all. Unfortunately, during the first half of the winter, the impression given to the outside world was that cricket was actually getting in the way of a rip-roaring lad’s holiday.
‘Not a complete reset’
As for how deep the Ashes review went? Detail is light but this analysis from Gould gives a worrying insight into how shallow it might have been.
“I don’t think it matters whether it was the India drawn series [at home last summer] or it’s Australia where the first Test, arguably we lost it in an hour or two. Across both of those five-Test series, there were relatively small key moments upon which we lost it, and those are the bits that we need to improve. But it’s not a complete reset. This is not the time to throw everything out. It’s time to learn and build.”
Admirable sentiments from Gould but they seem worryingly naive.
Perhaps one sentiment everyone can agree on was Gould’s assertion that: “We really want to be ready to win the Ashes in 2027.”
For all the talk now and seemingly weak logic to the decision to stick with the status quo, this will be the bottom line. Beat Australia next summer and all will be forgiven. But fail, and there will be one hell of a reckoning.
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