England: Keeping it Dry

 

01/02

Zero Tolerance - Simon Hughes

30/01

Tongue involved...

16/01

England's post-Ashes inquiry: How it will work, who is in charge and what we should expect

GEORGE DOBELL: Everything from the future of the leadership team, the culture and certain selection decisions will be debated over the coming weeks

No sooner had England's latest disastrous Ashes campaign in Australia concluded than the ECB management initiated a review into events leading up to the series.

Everything from the future of the leadership group - namely, head coach Brendon McCullum and managing director of England men's cricket, Rob Key - to important decisions taken before and during the tour will come under the microscope in an effort to learn from a largely chastening experience.

The Cricketer's chief correspondent George Dobell outlines the boundaries of the review, who will be involved, which decisions are set to come under the microscope, when we should expect action and what, ultimately, is likely follow.

What's involved?

According to the ECB's chief executive, Richard Gould, this review will look into the "planning and preparation, individual performance and behaviours, and our ability to adapt and respond effectively as circumstances require" across the Ashes tour.

Specifically, this will mean examining the decision to play just one inter-squad warmup match on a Perth park rather than taking the option of a first-class match at a Test venue as was offered.

It will also look at the make-up of the coaching staff, including the absence of a specialist fielding coach and the use of two interim bowling coaches.

It might also look at the amount of time dedicated to fielding during training sessions and the fitness of various members of the squad at the start of the tour.

It will also look into allegations of a drinking culture within the tour group. Stories have emerged of players out late and the worse for wear at various stages of the trip - notably, Harry Brook was disciplined after an altercation with nightclub security in New Zealand - and the review will question whether the current permissive environment is compatible with high-performance sport.

Questions will also be asked about the technical support given to players and the messaging from the dressing room during and after poor sessions of play.

It might reflect on the fact that captain Ben Stokes, in particular, attempted to play in a markedly different style (he had a strike-rate of 36.58 with the bat) to that shown over recent years and by the likes of Brook (who had a strike-rate of 81.73), Ben Duckett (91.40) and Jamie Smith (72.50).

It may also reflect on a relatively unchallenging coaching environment, which doesn't appear to have corrected technical flaws.

Various selection issues will also be reviewed: why was Mark Wood selected despite being unable to play a first-class match for more than a year? Why was Jacob Bethell ignored (and allowed to go to the IPL) after impressing in New Zealand? Why was Shoaib Bashir not trusted for the tour for which he had been groomed for two years? And what is it about Brook that the management thought would make a good leader?

Who is leading the review?

The ECB insist the review is being run by chief executive Richard Gould and Key, who appointed McCullum as one of his first acts in May 2022.

Both were in Australia at various stages of the tour and are understood to have held discussions with key figures involved already.

It is, on a level, a bit of a surprise that such senior figures are authoring the review. In normal circumstances, you might expect a senior independent board member or established figure within the game to lead such a review.

In the past, similar reviews have been conducted by former chair David Morgan and former men's cricket managing director Sir Andrew Strauss.

The fact Gould is leading the process underlines how seriously they take the issue. And suggest they are keen to share their experiences in Australia with the rest of the board.

The Cricketer has previously revealed that Alec Stewart is being lent upon both by Gould and, from time to time, Key, too. It would not be a surprise if, alongside Stewart, other senior figures within the English game - the likes of Ashley Giles - are consulted.

So should figures who have been on multiple England tours: the likes of Mark Saxby, the team's massage therapist, and Danny Reuben, the communications director, who have seen how previous regimes have operated.

Stokes is also highly likely to be consulted, as could other players and members of the coaching staff. Key and McCullum will be included.

Timeframe

The ECB are keen not to further destabilise England's T20 World Cup campaign. And with the final of that tournament not scheduled until March 8 (the Super 8s finish on March 1), they are in no hurry to act.

There is an ECB board meeting scheduled for mid-February, though. And it does seem likely that the meeting will discuss the report and consider next steps. It would be no surprise if the first indications of future actions emerge then.

All of which means, much as the ECB might want to avoid it, news about McCullum and Key's future may well come mid-tournament. You do wonder if that T20 World Cup wasn't scheduled as it is, if changes might have been made already.

Likely outcomes

There is no doubt at all that a cultural change within the England environment will be required from the ECB.

This has, to an extent, already started with a reintroduction of a curfew for the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka that starts at the end of this week and more thorough plans for future Ashes tours having already been introduced.

The key, though, will be whether McCullum, in particular, can accept greater direction from higher management and adapt to a more restrictive regime.

He has, in the past, made a virtue of a somewhat loose environment, suggesting it takes pressure off players and allows them the freedom to optimise their talent. Whether he feels he can flourish - or would even want to be involved - in a more formal system remains to be seen.

All this is complicated by the fact England are about to start another global event.

Should England win the T20 World Cup, you would think McCullum's role as coach in the limited-overs formats, at least, was safe. But it might be worth remembering the last limited-overs coach was sacked after England made the 2024 semi-final.

Either way, it would be a surprise if McCullum, in particular, is in place by the time England next play Test cricket.

09/01

insouciance

/ɪnˈsuːsiən(t)s,ɪnˈsuːsiɒ̃s/

noun

1. casual lack of concern; indifference.

Boozeball

Harry Brook fiasco symbolic of McCullum’s ‘it’ll be right, mate’ insouciance

If England head coach refuses to change after Ashes shambles, then the man himself must be changed

Oliver Brown

An alarming sign of Brendon McCullum’s attitude to coaching England came on the Adelaide outfield, where, with Australian players uncorking the champagne behind him and the urn surrendered in record-equalling time, he made his soaring pitch to keep his job. “It’s a pretty good gig, it’s good fun,” he shrugged. “You travel the world with the lads and try to play some exciting cricket and achieve some things.” He sounded as if he were describing life on board a cruise ship, where the pursuit of sporting glory was just some trifling distraction from the boys-on-tour vibe. And in return, he expected to keep a minimum £500,000-a-year salary, with zero accountability.

Any serious organisation would be disabusing him of this delusion today. But the message from the England and Wales Cricket Board is that it is still on board with Baz, that Baz is capable of cultural evolution, that there will simply be a few quiet behind-the-scenes tweaks before the grand unveiling of Bazball 2.0. Until the past 24 hours, this position might just have been tenable. Not now, though. Not after Telegraph Sport’s exposure of a culture so dismally amateurish that Harry Brook, the white-ball captain, felt at liberty on the night before a one-day international against New Zealand to go to a nightclub, with that bone-headed decision leading to him being punched by a bouncer.

There are certain moments in the lifespan of England teams when they are defined less by their feats on the field than by their fecklessness off it. It happened in football ahead of Euro ’96, where a lairy warm-up trip to Hong Kong was best captured by photographs of Paul Gascoigne on his back in a bar on a so-called “dentist’s chair”, having spirits sluiced down his throat.

It happened in rugby, too, with the misadventure of England’s 2011 World Cup campaign in New Zealand summed up by players’ antics at Altitude bar in Queenstown. Mike Tindall had married into the Royal Family only a couple of months earlier, but he and several others seized on a rare night of mid-tournament freedom by attending an event called the “Mad Midget Weekender”, where revellers could combine drinking with a spot of casual dwarf-tossing.

A similar notoriety now attaches itself to the 2025-26 Ashes tour, otherwise known as “Bazballers Go Large”. Just when you thought they had peaked in Noosa, where Ben Duckett – who seemed not to know where he was or how to get home – was offered an Uber to the nets, along comes Brook to up the ante with the revelation of his wild evening in Wellington. For the ECB, the questions thrown up by these multiple transgressions are serious.

When Rob Key, the director of cricket, conducted his media briefings in Melbourne last month, he said, in reference to a video of players drinking on the night when Brook later had his altercation with a security heavy: “There wasn’t any action, like formal action. I didn’t feel like that was worthy of formal warnings. But it was probably worthy of informal ones.”

And yet there had been formal action. Brook, in the wake of his actions on the very evening Key was addressing, was fined around £30,000 by the ECB, the maximum amount possible. So why did Key not disclose this? Why was there apparent omerta over the incident for more than two months?

There has been an incredulous reaction here in Australia, with one report turning the heat on “senior English officials who approved the cover-up”. It highlights the degree of discomfort for the governing body, with the problems exposed by the Brook story not just cultural but institutional.

The fiasco is embodied most vividly by McCullum. It is not simply that the 44-year-old New Zealander has presided over a shambles of a tour, but that his reaction to losing the Ashes 4-1 is one of casual, “it’ll be right, mate” insouciance. He was adamant in the aftermath of defeat in Sydney that he was “not for being told what to do” and snapped at a perfectly reasonable question about whether he could change his ways.

His demeanour during matches, chewing gum and draping his feet over the balcony railing, has become symbolic of the loucheness of the enterprise. Somebody should have offered to sponsor the soles of his shoes, as this is about the only angle from which viewers ever see him.

Except the power base he has built is precarious. It was striking how Ben Stokes seemed to put distance between himself and the deluded head coach by emphasising the “damage we did to ourselves” and his regrets about “adding to our own downfall”. The Bazball Kool-Aid is now an unpalatable potion, with the necessity for change self-evident. We are not in the 1980s any longer, when drinking scrapes were an accepted part of tour tapestry. This is an era where the best teams throw everything possible at winning, from data analysts to watt bikes to cryotherapy chambers. The fact that McCullum neglected even the absolute basics, failing to appoint a fielding coach or to schedule proper dry runs of the conditions England would face in Australia, is unforgivable.

There is no shortage of candidates who could replace him. Justin Langer appears desperate for the job, lavishing such praise on Jacob Bethell – “dare I say it, I love him” – that he would clearly jump at the chance to coach England’s latest centurion. A more radical option would be to break the bank for Ricky Ponting, should he be open to the opportunity, with his piercing insight into England’s failings a highlight of Ashes commentary.

Whoever emerges as the frontrunner, it is painfully obvious that the incumbent cannot remain, with McCullum already talking about his resistance to change. If he refuses to change, then it is the man himself who must be changed.

24/12

In Duckett's defence

23/12

Duckett, call me an Uber for the nets, "drunk"!

Key Sorry  that England under-performed

Key in the Guardian

Rob Key points the finger at the individual at most to blame for Ashes catastrophe - himself

George Dobell

If you were after a symbol of this England tour, it came midway through Rob Key's first media interview of the campaign.

In attempting to explain away England's defeats, he was interrupted by a very loud announcement repeated multiple times. In every sense you wanted to look at it, alarm bells were sounding.

"This is an important emergency announcement," it said. "Please gather your belongings, follow directions from staff to make your way quietly and calmly to the nearest exit and leave the MCG."

Key, being an experienced media figure, smiled bashfully. He knew how it would look. Almost as if this great old cricket ground was rejecting his mitigation for another Ashes loss.

"That's the longest Test of the tour," the Press Association's Rory Dollard said as it ended. 

Key, to his credit, was humble and honest. He gave the media the best part of two hours - this interview alone lasted more than 50 minutes - and he admitted his own mistakes while refusing to pick out other individuals. It was a reminder, if any were needed, that he's a decent man.

But it was also hopeless.

For while Key identified the problems with England's series just fine - "we didn't score enough runs," being one piece of gold dust - he struggled to connect the dots. And those dots, again and again, lead back to decisions he made.

For example, he accepted England's pre-Ashes warmup preparations were inadequate. But he seemed surprised that conditions in white-ball cricket in New Zealand were not the same as conditions in red-ball cricket in Australia. "We ended up in tough, early-season conditions out in New Zealand," he said. Almost as if he were surprised that spring in New Zealand should feature spring weather in New Zealand.

Hearing some of his suggested solutions was frustrating, too. For example, he suggested the England setup could probably do with a few more specialist coaches. Exactly the sort of specialist coaches he and Brendon McCullum dispensed with when they were appointed.

"There's probably a few spots where we're weak in terms of our set-up at the moment, where we've stripped it back too much," he said.

It shouldn't really have been a surprise that England, having dispensed with a fielding coach, should drop so many catches and find themselves incapable of hitting the stumps with throws. It might be the biggest difference between these two teams.

It also felt, at times, as if we were seeing Key come to conclusions in real time. As if, in answering questions from the media, he was being forced to think about the reasons for England's failure for the first time.

Take this exchange about the head coach. Brendon McCullum, who has always said his coaching is more about "the top two inches" than anything technical, has already admitted the players' "desperation" to do well resulted in "getting in their own way". In short, that anxiety got the better of them.

But if McCullum cannot succeed in this area, what is he for? There is very little evidence that the "top two inches" are in operation when the likes of Harry Brook are batting.

"The top two inches are much easier if you're playing well technically," Key said. "And Brendon isn't the bloke who's going to be sitting there telling you where your elbow is and all of that stuff.

"I think there's lots of different reasons why the top two inches haven't quite worked. I don't think that's all on Brendon, albeit Brendon would probably accept that on himself."

It was, in some ways, refreshing to hear Key say England had "spoken a load of crap" and "sometimes taken dumb options" with the bat. It felt like an admission that England would have to play smarter cricket and talk in less hubristic tones.

"Looking to ramp bowlers very early on when you're on 10, stuff like that, is dumb cricket," Key said. Which might be interpreted as a reference to Joe Root's ramp in Rajkot. Root, it might be noted, was on 18 at the time, having resumed on nine overnight. It was the fifth over of the morning.

But it was also frustrating. As most of this stuff has been obvious for months, if not years. Just as it was obvious that the fielding would suffer if attention wasn't paid to it. Just as it was obvious that a white-ball tour of New Zealand was not adequate preparation for the Ashes. It sometimes seems it's only Key and McCullum who are surprised by this stuff.

It's somewhat ironic that talk of an alcohol culture may be the issue that actually brings Key down. For it's a red herring, really. Just as it was when it was used against the previous regime. It is probably true that British culture, in general, has a problem with alcohol. And it's certainly true that, in terms of high performance, the amount drunk by modern cricketers remains unhelpful.

But this team environment is nowhere near as bad as many before it. And England have reacted to the mental health issues previous tours have exacerbated by allowing the players more downtime to relax and decompress. It might, in this light, be seen as a consequence of sending them on multi-month tours that bleed into one another. They are desperate for a release and sometimes take it in unhealthy places. It is perhaps telling that few invited their families on this section of the tour.

It might also be remembered that England were 2-0 down before Noosa and actually produced their best performance after it. Besides, if Key really is suggesting that anything more than "a glass of wine with dinner" is excessive, he's going to be disciplining a lot of players.

There's a context to all this, though. And that is this: Key and co were appointed to provide a player-friendly environment at a time when England were concerned they would lose multiple players to franchise leagues.

Whether this was true or not - and there is a school of thought which suggests some player agents played the ECB like a piano here - it resulted in a situation where the squad was assured of high salaries, high comfort and high times. It worked brilliantly for a while, when they were all coming out of Covid lockdowns, but over time they've started to look less fit, less well-trained and less well-disciplined. What worked then might well not anymore.

At the same time, Key won't be drawn into talking about the structure of county cricket. You suspect this is because he knows it's hopeless: England are committed to The Hundred and, with that being the case, it's desperately tough to find a schedule which fits in the requisite amount of T20, List A and Championship cricket to optimise income and player development. 

But if he won't confront that problem, if he admits his planning has been poor, if he admits England are lacking technical expertise but he has appointed a coach who isn't interested in technique, if he accepts the team are playing "dumb" cricket and "speaking crap", well, maybe Key really should heed the alarms and "gather your belongings, follow directions from staff to make your way quietly and calmly to the nearest exit"?

Andrew Strauss remarries seven years after wife’s death

Former England cricket captain shares images of wedding to Antonia Linnaeus-Peat in Franschhoek, South Africa

Fiona Parker

Sir Andrew Strauss, the former England cricket captain, has remarried seven years after the death of his first wife.

Sir Andrew, 48, shared pictures of his wedding to 30-year-old Antonia Linnaeus-Peat in Franschhoek, South Africa, on Instagram.

He wrote: “Celebrating the most special day in our favourite part of the world. Thank you for loving me and the boys the way you do and for showing us true happiness – I am so lucky to have found you.

“Here’s to a lifetime of beautiful memories, my girl.”

Linnaeus-Peat, who previously worked as a PR executive and now runs her own company – Linnaeus Fine Art Advisory – is believed to have begun dating Sir Andrew around two years ago.

The cricketer lost his first wife, Ruth, to a rare form of lung cancer on Dec 29 2018. She was 46, and the couple had been married for 15 years. Their two sons, Samuel and Luca, are now aged 19 and 17.

The cricket legend went on to found the Ruth Strauss Foundation, a charity supporting families facing the death of a parent from the illness and funding research into non-smoking lung cancers, in his late wife’s memory.

In a 2023 interview with The Telegraph, he spoke of how grief affected him, saying: “Our time is limited, and therefore I need to be more conscious about what I do and don’t do.

“This might mean experiencing things that weren’t appealing to me before, or saying no to things even though I don’t want to let people down. But most of all, it means keeping the people most important to me happy.”

On the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast in November, Sir Andrew revealed that only family had been invited to his second wedding, which was held last Wednesday. It took place at La Clè Vineyard, around 50 miles east of Cape Town.

Sir Andrew is not in Australia for England’s disastrous Ashes series because of his wedding.

He is the last England captain to win an away Ashes series – a feat he achieved 15 years ago.

Sir Andrew led England to a 3-1 triumph in 2010-11, but since then they have lost 14 and drawn two of the last 18 Tests in Australia.

Investigation into drinking

McCullum wants to stay

Why Bazball's pet project Shoaib Bashir has been ditched: The mediocre numbers, the detrimental effect experts say spinner is having on Ben Stokes... and the reason counties won't touch him

Lawrence Booth - The Mail

Shoaib Bashir’s Test career is far from over – but it is certainly on hold. And for most of the past two years, that has not been England’s plan.

When Ben Stokes was asked on Monday whether the decision to pick Will Jacks instead for the crucial third Test at Adelaide was because of his greater ability with the bat, the England captain answered as if he had been asked a different question.

‘A little bit of both,’ he said, before praising Jacks’s all-round contribution at Brisbane. It felt like a Freudian slip: not only do England fancy the Surrey man's runs at No 8, a stance vindicated by his fighting 41 in the second innings at the Gabba, they have apparently concluded his off-breaks are more likely than Bashir’s to trouble Australia.

While the hosts welcomed back Nathan Lyon, an off-spinner with 562 Test wickets to his name, his standing buttressed by a pre-match induction into Adelaide Oval’s ‘Avenue of Honour’, England’s supposed No 1 spinner has been cast adrift in the very series for which he had been groomed. It is every bit as bad as it looks.

Bashir’s head may not have stopped spinning ever since he was chosen at the age of 20 to tour India in early 2024, in part because of grainy Twitter footage of him bowling to Alastair Cook in the County Championship.

If that struck some as Bazball being too clever by half, then five-fors at Ranchi and Dharamshala kept critics at bay. When Bashir wrapped up West Indies’ second innings at Trent Bridge that summer with five for 41, excitement was expressed about his potential, and column inches devoted to his dismissal of Jason Holder, bowled through the gate in time-honoured fashion.

But he has added only one haul of five or more wickets to his Test CV – against lowly Zimbabwe in Nottingham earlier this year – allowing scrutiny to grow and doubts to fester.

A memorable moment came against India at Lord’s in July, when he shrugged off a broken finger to dismiss last man Mohammed Siraj and secure a nailbiting 22-run win. 

Yet Bashir’s headlong hurtle into the Lord’s outfield, pursued by grateful team-mates, remains his most recent deed in an England shirt. For now, his record is marooned in mediocrity: 68 Test wickets at 39, with an economy rate of 3.78, reflecting neither incision nor control.

The talk here in Australia has become not so much ‘How is Bash bowling?’ as ‘How is Bash?’ For the last two days, Stokes has sounded like his therapist, while admitting things haven’t turned out as planned. 

‘It’s obviously disappointing for Bash not to get the opportunity later on in the series where we thought he was going to,’ he said on Tuesday. ‘But, yeah, we didn’t think we’d be in the situation of 2–0 down after two and needing to win three.

‘We’ve had to make tough decisions before the series, and we will continue to make tough decisions if we feel like that’s what’s going to give us the best chance of winning a game.’

For now, Stokes is sticking to the line that Bashir remains England’s first-choice spinner, yet that position is collapsing under the weight of reality. And there are many on the county circuit who have been itching to say: ‘We told you so.’

Bashir has 17 fewer wickets than Graeme Swann did at this point of his Test career - and exactly the same number as Jack Leach, the man he replaced in the side

ESPNCricinfo

Bashir is now in the curious position of possessing an ECB central contract (worth, in his case, not far off £250,000) but no county deal, having been released by Somerset. In 2024, he was loaned to Worcestershire for a game, and took two for 162 against Surrey, with Dan Lawrence carting him for 38 in an over.

Last summer, he managed two wickets at 152 each for Glamorgan, as whispers circulated that no one at Cardiff really wanted him. There have been attempts to fix him up elsewhere, including at Warwickshire and Essex. Nothing has paid off. 

But the domestic game’s reluctance to get involved in what they regard as one of Bazball’s pet projects reflects a broader truth: Bashir is a single-skill cricketer who plays only one format of the game. 

Worse, county pitches barely turn. He has nowhere to hone his trade, nowhere other than the England setup to be told he’s any good. 

Bashir has the peculiar statistical 'honour' of being a far better performer in Tests than the county game, where he averages an eye-popping 89.57 with the ball.

His two matches out here, bowling for both sides during England’s practice match against the Lions, then for the Lions against Australia A, have yielded figures of 49–2–266–2. Plainly, the management have lost faith. If Bashir plays at all in this series, there is a good chance it won’t be while the Ashes are at stake.

It is often the case that a cricketer’s stature grows in inverse proportion to the fortunes of the team who have ditched him. But his absence has rendered external judgment no kinder.

The former England fast bowler Steve Harmison depicted him as an unaffordable luxury. ‘Ben Stokes has got a lot on his plate, and I don’t think he needs Shoaib Bashir playing, because it affects his game,’ he told talkSPORT. ‘England need Ben Stokes: they don’t need someone standing at mid-on and mid-off basically doing everything but letting go of the ball.’

England have defended their promotion of Bashir as a necessary response to county cricket’s inability to produce Test-class spinners. Now, confronted by the brutality of an Ashes tour, they have blinked, placing pragmatism before idealism and preferring a more part-time spinner whose 58 first-class matches have brought 50 wickets at 42.

All cricket captains have a plan until Australia punch them in the face. Bashir arrived here without a county. Unless something drastic happens, he will leave wondering whether he still has a country.