If heads are to roll after Ashes debacle then they should all roll - Comment
BEN STOKES and Brendon McCullum come as a package. Rob Key was the man who brought them together. All three are collectively responsible for England's Ashes debacle Down Under.
Keep Stokes and get rid of McCullum, say some. Keep Stokes and McCullum but get rid of Key, say others. Not many are saying get rid of Stokes, but then maybe the others are easier targets.
Either way, they are all in it together. They always have been, right from the start.
As the fallout continues and the inquests begin, there is plenty of focus on “The Three Wise Men” – or “The Three Stooges”, as Sir Geoffrey Boycott has termed them.
Rather like that vaudeville act, the tour descended into slapstick and farce, culminating in a 4-1 defeat that represented one of England’s worst-ever Ashes showings, given the expectation going into the series and the emasculated nature of their injury-hit opponents.
One of The Three Stooges’ most famous films was Punch Drunks, another was entitled Beer Barrel Polecats.
Off-field events, sadly, have added to the chaos – Yorkshire’s own Harry Brook joining the party (or rather not joining it) with the news that he tried to get into a nightclub on the eve of a game in New Zealand in October and clashed with a bouncer who denied him entry, the revelation emerging soon after Australia completed a five-wicket win in the last Test in Sydney.
Perhaps other film titles by The Three Stooges would be more appropriate to sum up a tour for which captain Stokes, head coach McCullum and managing director of cricket Key must be equally culpable. How about Scrambled Brains, perhaps, or Blunder Boys.
Another one, however, is not an option – Turn Back the Clock. How they would all like to do that and start over, right back to when the management signed off the botched preparation.
If changes are made to the status quo, perhaps once the T20 World Cup is over in March, it would be wrong, in this view, to get rid of just one or two.
Until now, the indications have been that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) would prefer that status quo to continue, perhaps with an element of shielding what some might perceive as its own incompetence – who is judging the judges, as it were.
However, Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive, hardly issued a glowing endorsement of the management in a statement released when the series was done.
Describing England’s performance as “deeply disappointing” and lacking consistency, he outlined a desire to “take many lessons” and “improve quickly”, with a review of the tour already under way.
“This will cover tour planning and preparation, individual performance and behaviours, and our ability to adapt and respond effectively as circumstances require,” said Gould. In other words, the whole shebang.
The suggestion now is that McCullum, especially, will be pressed to change. No more “running towards the danger”, like pheasants approaching oncoming cars. No more going “even harder” when the risks don’t come off.
If resistant – and the stubborn New Zealander seems unlikely to acquiesce to a wholescale change of environment and culture – then McCullum might make the ECB’s task easier by falling on his sword.
It might be interpreted that Gould’s remarks are so designed, given McCullum’s rock-solid belief in himself and his methods. Bazball, though, is not just McCullum. It is Stokes and Key too, in spirit and in strategy.
Either they should all go – like the failed board of a High Street company under pressure from shareholders – or else they should all continue. No middle ground.
If only Key went, for instance, would English cricket suddenly change for the better? You might say that McCullum’s departure would definitely change things, but would that be fair on McCullum given all that has happened?
Stokes seems bulletproof if you read all the pundits and listen to the podcasts, the only viable candidate as leader and captain.
They said much the same about Joe Root, you may recall, before Stokes replaced him, but there is always an alternative in the wings – not necessarily from among the current set-up.
Stokes’ tactics were strange in this series, his bowling policies baffling at times. He turns 35 this summer and has a poor injury record. He should be every bit as accountable as the rest.
Comments prior to the series that former players were “has-beens”, that they knew nothing about modern preparation, were exposed as arrogant gibberish.
His public pronouncements may have shifted during the tour, edging further away from those of McCullum, but that’s easy to do when you’re taking a hammering.
If anything, McCullum deserves the greater credit for staying true to himself, albeit recognising that “tweaks” are now required.
Ultimately, though, the problems run deeper.
Was it any coincidence, for instance, that Josh Tongue turned out to be England’s most successful bowler in terms of average (18 wickets at 20.11) on the back of helping Nottinghamshire to win the County Championship?
Perhaps, but whereas Tongue had been playing cricket, getting overs in his legs, some of the others had not, and there is no substitute for playing games, red-ball ones especially.
Sadly, 20 years on from surely the greatest Ashes series ever, when our own Michael Vaughan lifted the urn against a genuinely great Australia side, we have just witnessed one of the most disappointing rubbers in the age-old rivalry.
It was a non-event, a no-contest as soon as England inexplicably imploded in the first Test in Perth.
One could fill an entire newspaper, in fact, with the litany of mistakes and missteps that England made during and prior to the tour.
Who knows, maybe England will now win the T20 World Cup and all will be, if not quite forgotten, then pushed to the back of minds as the dust now settles.
Such is the nature of modern sport, but Bazball has been a collective endeavour, as much Benball or Keyball, you could say, as McCullum’s doing.