Rob Key on England's Ashes defeat: 'We haven't helped players get to their best'

Rob Key, England's director of cricket, faced the media at the MCG on Tuesday (December 23), with his side's Ashes campaign already in tatters at 3-0 down. With two matches still to play, questions around England's pre-series preparation and their performance in the middle dominated a lengthy press conference.

Key insisted the gap between England's ability and their output was the most frustrating part and placed the blame squarely on the management group.

"My overwhelming thing, apart from the disappointment, is actually I feel like we're so much better than what we've played," he said.

"I must have said that almost every day in this series... just as you get to a position you end up getting yourselves in trouble a little bit. And it's bloody tough, as we knew. That's cricket, and I think that's my overriding thing. The players we had, we haven't helped them get to their best, and that's on us as a set-up."

Key pointed to preparation and the structural choices made ahead of the Ashes, particularly England's white-ball tour of New Zealand and admitted that, in hindsight, it wasn't a very good idea.

"I was of the opinion that we'd go to New Zealand for the white-ball stuff," Key said. "I've been criticised quite rightly for focussing too much on Test cricket. So you're trying to hedge your bets a little bit and go, right, okay, 50-over cricket can be a good opportunity where you get competitive cricket, where batters in particular can start to find form, if you're Joe Root, people like that."

Instead, England found themselves short of rhythm and confidence. "We ended up in tough early-season conditions out in New Zealand, where the batters probably did more harm than good... Ben Duckett, people like that," Key said. "So then you feel like you're chasing it a little bit, because one part of it's gone, then you can't flip your preparation and go, 'oh, by the way, now we need to play loads of games'.

"We had a choice of whether we went to Adelaide and played against an Australian team there, or just went to Perth and tried to control the preparation ourselves," Key added. "They said to us, 'actually, if you go there, it's not going to be the WACA or Optus, you're going to end up at a club ground'. And I said, no, it's fine. We feel we can control that preparation better.

"I don't necessarily believe that had we just gone and played there then we'd now be 3-0 up in the Ashes. Even with that, we've still got to get more out of our players.

"You've got to look at yourselves as a set up, I think. If your players are playing to their potential and they're getting beat, that's fine. But in this series so far, we haven't done that."

On the field, England's shot selection has come under scrutiny and Key was blunt in his assessment.

"There's a real difference between aggression and dumb," he said, "and sometimes we take dumb options, looking to ramp bowlers very early on when you're on 10. Stuff like that is dumb cricket. Looking to hit a wide half-volley hard is fine. That's there to hit.

"It makes me cringe sometimes saying it but, you know, we talk about absorbing pressure, soaking up pressure, understanding moments, realising when the game's on the line and that moment can go either way. Too often we take the wrong option. And that's where we've got to get better. And that's what cricket is really.

"I don't think we've ever hidden away from that, to be honest, but it's a real fine balance between taking away weapons from players and saying, 'Don't do this, don't do that, don't do this. That's where Brendon, I think, works bloody well at just speaking to players one-on-one and just trying to make sure that they make better decisions and not stupid decisions. It doesn't always look like that, but it's hard."

Key also acknowledged that England may not have been bold enough with some of their selection decisions during the tour.

"You start looking at some of the decisions that we've made and think, 'Should we have made a change there much sooner?' I don't think that's right to speculate on who those people are at the moment, but they're the things that you look at," Key said.

Despite the losses and the scrutiny, Key reiterated his faith in head coach Brendon McCullum, whom he had hired back in 2022 and said the decision on his future is "up to the ECB."

"Brendon's always looking to evolve, really, always looking to change," he said. "When we've sat down and said, 'Right, how are we going to improve? How are we going to get better?' At no stage has he ever said, 'No, no, I'm only doing it this way.' There's no question we have to evolve it again really.

"There's been some brilliant moments along the way. I still feel like there's plenty of life in this whole thing now, but we have to evolve. We have to make sure that we're doing things better.

"The decision really for the ECB will be whether or not they want to rip it up and start again, or whether they want to evolve and whether we're the right people to do that. Clearly, I believe that Brendon is an excellent coach, his record is very good. This is only the third series we've lost in four years.

"Clearly, we've mucked up on the big occasions, whether that was the home Ashes series, whether that was last summer against India. The big ones have eluded us. There's been some brilliant moments along the way. I still feel like there's plenty of life in this whole thing now, but we have to evolve. We have to make sure that we're doing things better."