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rob key considers his own England Reigns has “messed up in big moments” but hopes he will be given time to “develop” after the Ashes defeat.
A tour promoted as a legacy-defining project has descended into a familiar round of soul-searching English game after three consecutive defeats Perth, brisbane And Adelaide.
The vase has already gone, but there are two games left to stop the bleeding, starting with the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.
With Key’s role as managing director of men’s cricket and Brendon McCullum’s role as head coach next in line, jobs could be at risk.
Key admits that the team has not been able to perform well in the biggest moments, failing to win any of the last four five-match series against their chief rivals, Australia and India.
Now they have both lost away while drawing 2-2 twice at home.
“Obviously, we have messed up at big moments. Be it the home Ashes series or against India last summer, where we should have won the series, big opportunities have eluded us,” he said.
“The truth is we haven’t performed that well of late. There have been some great moments along the way and I still think there’s a lot of life in this whole thing, but we’ve got to evolve. We’ve got to make sure we’re doing things better. You don’t regret losing, it’s just that you didn’t play your best.
“That’s my view on it but, as you know, these things sometimes get out of people’s hands. Really the decision for the ECB will be whether they want to break it up and start again, or whether they want to evolve and are we the right people to do that.”
McCullum has already signaled his expectations of continuing in the post and Key, who appointed him as Test coach in 2022 and expanded his brief to cover all formats from earlier this year, remains firmly behind him.
“Brandon has been a very good coach and is a very good coach,” he said.
“We’re at the point where your dressing rooms can break down and they can lose confidence in people around them, but I don’t think that’s the case. We’ve had three games here where they’re slowly adapting, and I personally don’t think it’s because we need a new voice or they’re not listening.
“Sometimes opposition is great.”
While a comprehensive assessment of where it went wrong for England will undoubtedly be undertaken in the new year, Key has already identified some errors.
He acknowledged that the preparation period for such a large series, which included a white-ball tour of New Zealand and only one intra-squad warm-up match at the club ground, was inadequate, and hinted that additional specialist coaches might be sought after an initial resolution of the bloated backroom set-up.
Crucially, he also suggested that too much confidence might have been shown by his selection panel.
Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Shoaib Bashir have received significant support in recent times despite modest returns and they are yet to repay.
Crawley started the series with consecutive ducks which set up a negative result, Pope is certain to be given out for Jacob Bethel at the MCG and Bashir is yet to struggle in practice.
Key added: “You start to look at some of the decisions we made and think, ‘Should we have made a change there very quickly?’
“I don’t think it’s right at this point to speculate on who those people are, but those are the things you look at.”