Rob Key backs Brendon McCullum to remain England head coach despite Ashes defeat | Cricket News

Rob Key insists Brendon McCullum is the best man to continue as England manager, but admits he doesn’t know what the ECB has planned in the wake of the abject Ashes defeat.

A tour billed as a legacy-defining project has turned into a familiar period of English football soul-searching after three consecutive defeats in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.

The urn may already be gone, but with two Tests still to play – starting with the Boxing Day match in Melbourne – England still have a chance to salvage some pride.

Failure to do so could put jobs at stake, including Key’s role as general manager of men’s cricket. McCullum has already signaled his desire to stay, and Key, who appointed him as Test coach in 2022, remains firmly in his camp.

“Brendon is an exceptional coach,” Key told the Sky Sports Cricket podcast. “A lot of it is our fault. It’s always been about putting the bowlers under pressure, absorbing the pressure, but we haven’t done that well enough, whether against India in the summer or now.

“Brendon’s record as a coach is excellent. When you compare him to other coaches, we haven’t won the big series, but will we have to evolve, adapt, change and become better at all these things that we talk about? Of course we will.

“Do I think he’s the man to do this? If he’s as prepared as I am to do it, he’s the man. Brendon is a resilient character. There’s nothing I’ve seen of him that suggests he doesn’t want to.

“When you go on these tours, when you lose to Australia in an Ashes series, half the team doesn’t like the captain and the other half doesn’t like the coach – that doesn’t happen at all on this trip. They’ve kept the players together remarkably well considering everything that’s happened. But will we have to evolve? Absolutely.”

With the four-year Ashes cycle used as a barometer of England’s success and progress, Key admitted that a series of whitewashes in Australia could leave the ECB with no choice but to undergo a thorough overhaul – one from which no one, not even himself, would be safe.

“That’s definitely what happens with these things,” he added. “The decision of the England and Wales Cricket Board [ECB] that’s exactly it: if you have to tear everything up and start again. This happens in politics, where you go one way then the other.

“As a leadership group we need to improve and evolve, and they need to decide if we are the right people for that.

“What I would say, to Brendon [McCullum] and Ben’s [Stokes] The thing is, they were very good. If you look at everything they have done under scrutiny over the last three or four years, they have done some brilliant things for English cricket.

“As long as they are ready to move on, they should stay there – and the ECB can decide what they want to do with me.”

Although a wider assessment of England’s problems will surely follow in the new year, Key has already identified some mistakes.

He admitted the preparation period for such a big series – which included a white-ball trip to New Zealand and a single intra-squad warm-up match at a club ground – was insufficient.

“There’s a difference between planning and getting it wrong,” Key said. “The idea that we don’t care about preparation is not true. Obviously it didn’t work, so it’s hard to argue that it was right, but I’ll explain the reasons why.

“We had a T20 and white-ball series in New Zealand, and it was very important that everyone knew what team it was, what we were playing, how we were preparing – that nothing was different and that we would prepare like we would anywhere. But it didn’t work.

“We went to Lilac Hill knowing that the conditions were not going to replicate what we would face, but there is nowhere other than the WACA or Optus Stadium that can replicate those conditions. That was the idea behind it. We thought that would be enough to be ready for that Test match, but it didn’t work.”

England were also criticized for a break in Noosa between the second and third Tests, saying it resembled a “stag party” with excessive alcohol consumption. Key says he doesn’t believe there is a culture of drinking within the group, but admits it would be unacceptable if things reached that point.

“We live in a world where you pick up your phone and every day there is something about cricket,” he said. “I think it’s very important that these players get away from the surveillance and the spotlight. That was the whole plan for the trip to Noosa – so they could run away, throw their phones in the trash and not get inundated.

“But it’s a delicate balance, and if it looks like it ends with a party and a stag do, that’s unacceptable. I don’t like a drinking culture; I don’t drink much myself, if at all.”

Asked if he was sure there was no drinking culture within the England team, Key said: “We have put in extra security and made it clear that guys shouldn’t be out all the time getting hammered. So far, from what I’ve seen, that hasn’t been the case – but it’s unacceptable if that was the case.”

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