Rob Key on England's Ashes defeat | What went wrong and what's next?

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0:40Nasser Hussain:Rugged landscapes, dramatic scenery, ancient stories, friendly locals, huge national parks and delicious local food and wine. Inspired to visit Western Australia but feeling stumped, there are no boundaries to flight centres' travel expertise. You'll have your own dedicated travel expert, real people who know Australia inside out and love creating tailor-made itineraries to suit your style, needs and budget. Visit flightcentre.co.uk to plan your Western Australia adventure today. The worst start, that is from Crawley. Chris Wokes nails it to four. The ashes alive and test cricket alive. Ice in his veins Pat Cummins has led his team To a famous victory Yeah He gets it's going to end in England's captain Ben Stokes Well he is there England have hope Put the beer away Put the champagne on ice 24 years of pain in Australia Finally they're beaten at home by England OK the Sky Cricket Podcast Has moved on to Melbourne this great Coliseum the MCG and the preparations for the fourth test are well underway, it's Tuesday late morning Melbourne time, the test match starts on Friday, the Ashes have gone of course so it's a good time to talk to Rob Key the Managing Director of Men's Cricket and thanks for coming on first of all, we appreciate your time, you're always generous with your time just sum up the tour for us from your perspective well, there's obviously a lot in that but the sort of overarching thing I think you know when I came out here and was it with you 2003 whenever it was when you look back you actually think you know were we good enough to beat that side probably not you know are we good enough to play better than what we have done out here absolutely I think you know and that's the most frustrating the most disappointing part of it is actually we're better than what we've played now there's lots of different reasons for that which we can go into.

2:45One of those is the fact that Australia and that bowling attack in particular is outstanding. But still, with all of that, have the players that we've got played to anything like their full potential? I think no. In some cases, probably yes. But in most cases, I think everyone's better. Generally, everyone's a better player than what they've shown.

3:06Nasser Hussain:Well, we'll get into the reasons why. There's going to be about 20 ,000 England supporters here in Melbourne this week, I'm told. We've been on a lot of Ashes tours, and I would say that walking around and bumping into England supporters in the three cities we've been in, there's been more of a sense of anger and disappointment than probably on any Ashes tour that I've been on. A, have you sensed that? And B, to the 20 ,000 who would be here and people listening at home, what would your message to them be? I think you do. I think certainly from the first test in Perth, that's exactly what I felt.

3:43And, you know, and I can completely understand why. And when you see people, there's lots of people in our hotels, you know, you almost just want to say sorry, really. Because, you know, as I do, you feel like we're a much better team than what we've shown. You feel like this was our opportunity. And we've planned all the way, not just to win the Ashes, because I feel like this make-up of this team, and there'll be the odd changes there always is after you know players lose form and stuff like that but on the whole this will be you know these are the players to take us forward for a lot of different places a lot of different tours a lot of different series and at the last minute we've got things wrong and that's the frustrating thing I can completely understand that because people have all been on this journey and they've enjoyed it all the way up until this point and I feel like we haven't been anything like our best and that's the most frustrating and disappointing thing of the whole expedition.

4:41You say you've planned for a long time but the coach admitted the other day after the third test defeat that he probably didn't get the preparation right which by definition probably means you didn't get the preparation right. Could you explain to those fans that Af talks about how when going into the most important series for an England fan and an England player you didn't get the preparation right when everyone was warning you about the preparation for australia yeah look there's a difference between not planning and getting it wrong you know like so the thought that oh we don't care about preparation that's not true right so i'll explain the reasons for our preparation you know and that people can look clearly it didn't work so it's hard to argue that it was right you know so it starts from when you're going so we had a white ball series in New Zealand we had two T20 and white ball now I've sat on this podcast and I've done all the media today and I've done things in the past where I've had to say I've focused on test cricket I've had teams in different continents and you can't get I couldn't give Joss Butler Matthew Mott their best team you know we are where we are in 50 over cricket as well with the World Cup qualification stuff like that and I felt that with the schedule as it is I wasn't prepared to right off that 50 over series in particular out in New Zealand had to fail we need to give Harry Brook and Brendan McCollum their best possible side and actually that can work because if we get down to New Zealand I've seen it before in the past you get on a good surface out in 50 over cricket that can be it's competitive cricket against international class bowling so Smith Duckett Joe Root people like that that can be the start of their ashes preparation and we got down to New Zealand we were early season sporty wickets game was over quickly lost the toss actually had a more detrimental effect because of the way that it went you then want your bowlers to get right this is the start this is where you build them up from here so Joffre misses the first game in New Zealand but then he plays from there Brydon cast the same the other guys were out in with the Lions out in Perth and they start building up for their preparation there We had five or six of the squad in Perth starting, and then we had everyone else out in New Zealand.

6:58It didn't work like that. So we're chasing it from that moment. Now, in every trip we've done in the past, generally we've started well, whether that was India. And we've done that by believing that let's take control of our own preparation. We went to Abu Dhabi, tried to recreate conditions as best we could. I know what you're going to say about that. But, you know, and then we started well in India. often, the same in New Zealand, that was a very good series win in New Zealand last year, and it's the end of the series when we've run out of steam, when it's like we're all in on those first couple of games, and bang, then we run out of steam, we lose the last test.

7:32So you get into an Ashes, and you haven't, you would have been there, where you're like, it's very important that everyone knows exactly what the team this is, that everyone knows what we're about, everyone knows how we prepare, there's nothing different, we just go out there, we'll try and prepare in the similar way that we have done, whether that's in India, New Zealand, anywhere else. So they feel comfortable in that. Didn't work. We got to Lilac Hill and we knew the choice was we could have gone to Adelaide and played against an Australian team which would have been straight from New Zealand into Adelaide, not conditions like the Optus anyway.

8:05And we thought, you know what, let's get everyone, the Lions and the England boys, Test boys will be in Perth. Let's get there. We'll play a game there. We can control if people lose wickets quickly and the bowlers don't bowl enough, we can then control that game. And as we knew, we knew it was going to be like that, that conditions weren't going to replicate. But there's nowhere really apart from the WACA and the Optus, as Tim Payne said, that replicates those conditions. That was the thinking behind it. And it didn't work.

8:36Nasser Hussain:Did you ask for the WACA? And B, did you ask early enough for the WACA? We came last, I was here last year, there was a recce done before that, and when it wasn't Adelaide, they said, well, Perth, it won't be, it'll be a club ground, and we said, you know, we've played, the club grounds are different, it's not like going to Beckenham or somewhere like that, but there was a Shield game, there was a women's BBL game there, so we knew that, right? Now, could we have asked three years in advance, possibly? You know, but you know what it's like, you know, we came here, they sent us to Perth, we then go to Brisbane, there's a reason why they do what they do.

9:13But you know that Rob, we all know that. We know why they start at Perth and Brisbane, whichever way round. But the frustration is that people say, well you booked your trip to Noosa a year in advance but you couldn't find a bouncy pitch in Australia to prepare for those first two tests. How does that happen where you can't find a bouncy pitch? Why can't you be firm and say, You must know Lila Keel is not good preparation for that first test match. Just as a cricketer. Yeah, of course. With hindsight. But that's not what happened. You know, like you can try and do it. But we felt that that was going to be sufficient enough for us to get ready for that test match.

9:56And it didn't work.

9:57Nasser Hussain:The cricket operations side of it, the detail. You've had quite a lot of change in that department, have you? When you arrived, I think it was still John Carr. Then David Humphreys came for a short time. Then Stuart Hooper, I think. Now it's Rob Hillman, I'm writing, saying. Is there a danger in all that change that some of the detail falls through the cracks? Possibly, yeah. I mean, you're talking about David Humphreys came in, then got offered the job to be in charge of Ireland rugby and stuff like that. So, of course, when you have those things that happen, you know, there's handovers. John Carr had done it for 20 plus years you know um so there's a huge amount of stuff that you know and John Carr was a lot of it was in his head all of that stuff so yeah of course there's a chance that those things happen um but still you know like are you confident that the people are are in place right now the detail will be covered there's no there's no way I'm going to sit here and say that this is down to someone in ops.

11:04Those people work unbelievably hard. They work every single day. They have got tough jobs. They're unsung heroes in our world. There's no way I'm going to sit here and say that.

11:14Nasser Hussain:When I chatted to Ben Stokes prior to the first test, I asked him specifically about the criticism from former players and the fact that the criticism was that the England team were winging it before the test match there. And he adamantly said, no, we've got the preparation we're happy with. We got what we wanted. We are ready to go. But that's what I'm saying. You know, like, we were. See, all the stuff that you say, we were happy. You know, we thought, you know, this is how we've done it. This is how it's the same thing. You know, you want to turn up here with a settled team. You know, because the last thing, teams come out here and they change the team last minute and it creates chaos.

11:54Same thing. You want to do things that we've done in the past that have been successful. So, of course, we're happy with how we could do that because it had worked before. And then you just run into a brick wall of the Optus and a side now that has been too good for us in the last game.

12:12Nasser Hussain:Selection. Let's go back because you build up to these series a long way ahead. Are you happy with the team that you selected now in hindsight? What would you change if not? there's two games to go. I'm not going to go into too much of the personnel that we've got at the moment. I think we came out here with a side that I thought could win the Ashes. And I still believe, had we played anything like to our potential, we could still have come out here and done that. You know, you look back and you think the issue has been, are the players good enough to come here and do it? I think they are. You know, the issue more is, have we got them into a position where they can succeed out here you know is Ben Duckett our best opener absolutely he's one of the best multi-format openers in the world I think that he is more than capable of playing out here even his style Travis Head does it you know his way of doing it he's just been in poor form for a little while then he's had some good balls here and it's been tough so I think that the issues of course you know like you look back now and we'll go through every selection that we've made and stuff like that and wonder about whether or not are the 15 that we brought out here are they capable of scoring hundreds taking wickets out here i think they are did you misjudge conditions because we've spoken about it a number of times about recently you took the mick out of me about recently how the ball's doing more here in australia did you pick a squad for previous ashes battles on flat pitches where long days in the field where you need pace and bounce and aggression and batters who may need to put um you know a bit of pressure back on bowlers whereas on this tour you've needed accuracy relentless line and length and batters that can soak up pressure and with a good technique that can survive when it's nibbling around now look i think our bowlers are capable of doing all those things you know there's talk and i've seen the video going around of me saying 75 mile an hour bowling doesn't work in australia there's been no 75 mile an hour bowlers here you know they go oh scott bowlin others there's 50 scott bolands in canton no there isn't scott boland and these guys grow up on these conditions they run up and you watch them they hair in and it's whack whack 82 83 84 mile an hour relentless accuracy mitchell stark he's up there at what 90 mile an hour that's what the likes of gus atkinson bryden kars in pakistan did it for us that's what we haven't done but we are capable of doing that I think Joffre's bowled really well throughout.

14:48He's got far too much criticism out here for the bowler that he is and what he's done for us. But you can't afford to have one person that drops off. You can't afford to have one person that releases pressure. That's what they do. When we played the Lions game here, their bowling attack, the same thing, are just relentless in their line and length. But they're not floating them up. They're coming in and they're hitting the pitch hard. So I don't think that we got that wrong necessarily. We just haven't executed any of the skill that we had. Isn't that a repercussion of preparation? Their lads are playing state cricket, going into the first test with games and overs under their belt.

15:27Your lads who bowl well in the summer. I'm not disputing Gus Atkinson is a superb bowler from what we saw. Brydon Kass in Pakistan, bowled beautifully. So they weren't ready for that first test. they didn't hit their lines and lengths second test gabber they didn't by the time they got to the second innings in Adelaide suddenly you're starting to play better cricket I agree that I agree with that that's why that clearly we didn't get that right but your question was about selection and I think actually that's the point these players are better than what they've shown and that's on us that's on us that we haven't got players into the right not frame of mind they're They haven't been playing at their best.

16:09And that's your job, is to try and get players to play at their best at the biggest moment. And part of that is because Australia are very good and everything that goes with it here. But is it a selection issue? Personally, I don't think so. Is it our players not playing well enough? Yes. Is that on us? Absolutely. Is that preparation?

16:27Nasser Hussain:Yes. Is there more to it than preparation? You say you've got the players to challenge here. The players have underperformed. That's on you, the management group. Preparation has been a focus of why. Are there other reasons? Brendan McCollum is under the microscope right now, obviously, as men's head coach. Do you have confidence in him? I think that Brendan is an outstanding coach. I think that a lot of this is our fault. But from when it started and, oh, here we go, the players were talking about entertainment, and all of that stuff you know it has always been and I've been sick of saying it really about putting bowlers under pressure soaking up pressure and we have not done that well enough from whether it's India whether it's now stuff like that Brendan's record as a coach is excellent when you compare him to other coaches they haven't won or we haven't won the big series stuff like that but will we have to adapt will we have to evolve absolutely will we have to change and become better at all these things we're talking about?

17:33Of course we will. Do I think he's the man to do that? If he's prepared to do it, if I'm prepared to do it as I am, then I think he is the right person to go for.

17:42Nasser Hussain:You must have chatted with him. I mean, you said that if he's prepared to do it, what is your sense from your conversations with him? Has he got the desire to carry on? Does he want to carry on? Brendan's a resilient character. There's no question about that. I think that there's nothing that I've seen of him that he doesn't want to. When you get to these situations, when you get to tours, you've got half the team, when you're losing, you're in Australia, you're getting beaten in an Asher series, half the team don't like the captain, the other half don't like the coach. That's not happening at all on this trip.

18:17They've kept the players together remarkably well, unconsidering everything that's gone on. But will we have to evolve? Absolutely.

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19:20Nasser Hussain:During this tour, you had an opportunity to go to Canberra for a pink ball test match, two-day game, which you chose not to. And then you had a week-long break in Noosa or a four-day break in Noosa. First of all, do you regret the decisions you made over the way that itinerary has panned out? To start with Canberra, I felt that actually the Zach Crawley who got a pair of people like that, we gave them the responsibility to say, well what do you think you need in that we weren't a blanket yes you all go no you don't some players we said no no you're going the likes of Bethel tongue things like that um you know I don't regret that one I think that we should have sent Bashir I think that was a mistake um but when we got to Brisbane and it was a completely different climate it was the most humid of humid of all of them we got to the Gabba we're able to practice what I think we did is that We weren't smart enough with our, you know, we did five days of nets.

20:24We had the Lions at the Allen Border Oval playing a game. There's something we could have done getting out. So it's a different style of practice. Bowlers out in the middle because I thought the way that a few of our lads bowled in that Brisbane test cost us that game. You go to Noosa, you know, like there's obviously stories coming out about that at the moment. Now, again, I explain the reasoning behind these things. So we're now in a time where multi-format cricketers are playing all the time. So someone like Harry Brook will have six days at home this entire winter. Then we go into a really jam-packed summer schedule.

21:01Take Joffre. Joffre, everything that he does to get back to playing test cricket over the last two years. He'll go from New Zealand, he's now come to the Ashes. Hopefully everything goes well in the next couple of games here. He then goes to the World Cup. He then goes to the IPL. He's then got New Zealand back at home. Then there's a big series against India. Then the 100, right? These are all things that I'm trying to navigate in this job. How you get the best team possible out on the park all the time, not only there, but fit, fresh, ready to go. We now live in a world where when you pick up your phone every single day, there is something about cricket on there.

21:42I think personally it's so important for these players to get away from the scrutiny and the spotlight. So that was the whole plan with the Noosa thing. So you could get away, forget about cricket, hopefully throw your phone in the bin for a little bit. Don't be just inundated because, you know, podcasts and clips and all of this stuff, it's there all the time. And it's really hard to avoid. Now, there's a fine balance though, right? and if that looks like it ended up because you know and headlines are misleading if it looks like that's ended up as a jolly and a stag do and all of that that's unacceptable you know that's not i don't like a drinking culture i don't drink much myself if at all are you confident there isn't a drinking culture so every so we put extra security in and you know since seeing the things that come out and even before you know we made it pretty clear that that wasn't to be the case that These lads weren't to be out all the time, getting hammered, having a, you know, and so far from what I've seen, you know, or what I've looked at and what we're looking at, that wasn't the case, but that's unacceptable if it was.

22:48Going back to the cricket, and a caveat here is that both me and Ath have really enjoyed watching your team play. It's gone pear-shaped here, but you have given us some very special moments. It's been an incredible team and journey that you've gone on, But I've always had the feeling that you're slightly more worried about how rather than how many. How do you get into this side as a batter? You have to be explosive. The captain himself said on interview, I don't think Alistair Cook or Michael Afferton, we would want him in this side. The bowling, you have to bowl a certain pace. Surely it has to be about how many, not how.

23:23One of the great sides of England had Trott and Peterson, who played completely differently. you can't just have one way across the board of a mindset of this is how we're going to play you have different players different batters a balanced bowling attack it's how many isn't it rob that's all that counts it's a game of stats you get more runs than the opposition but you have to do it i agree with that entirely but it's about how many you get against cummins stark hazelwood bumra rabada people like that that's the judgment you have to do it is not as simple as it was when you were playing where you can just look and go okay top of the county averages in you come top of this in you come it's about the judgments you make are about who can go and become one of the most successful players and have a 50 60 plus test career same thing whether it was Alistair Cook back in the day and again there's things that are said Ben Stokes you know the players at times they'd retract some of that stuff now you know like it's it is about how many but it's how many you can get in that environment and they're the judgment judgments you have to make in selection and that's where it's not always easy it's not as simple but to be honest it never has been i don't think there's ever been a time where that's how things have been selected from with you and duncan fletcher and andy flower and whoever it was and of course the jonathan trots people like that fantastic cricketers it's more about the mindset you're trying to create a mindset where players can succeed whoever you are so you go out there you look to score you look to be positive and that helps your defense it's the messaging because you know there's times in this journey that you've been on where you have got it wrong you've gone too positive with the bat and your coach will come out and say if anything we didn't go hard enough now you know what it's like as a player when you're listening to that sort of stuff i interviewed ollie pope after his two dismissals in Perth and I said to him about driving on the up outside the off stump and he said well if anything we don't commit to enough you can commit to a leave there's nothing wrong with leaving the ball outside the off stump so the messaging has to be whether that's external messaging in the side when you see some of the batting at Perth the collapse when you were 100 ahead one down and you were doing laps of a of the Lions game and you hear you've lost four wickets within that team environment is someone saying do you know what driving on the up in australia is probably not the best way to go in perth and brisbane yeah and that should happen before that though right and and ollie pope's right you want people to commit to whatever they do you want to try and create a world in where people whatever they do they commit to it and it's the right decision there's times when there's a big difference i think and brendan's the same there's a big difference between attacking positive cricket and dumb cricket and at times we are playing dumb cricket we take dumb options there's no question about that but there's also a difference between messaging publicly and what goes on in that dressing room and they're the things that and it's because it's not as simple as saying don't do that don't do that for some players it is you know and you've got to get those right so i don't disagree with any of that when you go out there and you're driving on the up for you know when you're doing it first ball and stuff like that and the the pressure of an ashes your zach crawley walking out for i get it people make mistakes when you have seven attempts at driving on the up and you miss every single one and then you do it again that is dumb cricket you know and we've got to get so much better at that can i ask

26:53Nasser Hussain:about the nasa was talking about the batting that we'll just stay on the batting for a minute can ask about the accountability for batters again it's a fine line one understands in selection you want to give players enough chances and you want to make them feel secure that their place is not always under threat but there does come a moment as well when performance matters and there needs to be accountability has there been enough accountability in the setup given that you know some top-order players have been indulged for a long period of time in terms of their actual output. Yeah, I think that when you build for a series and then it doesn't go well, then it's hard to argue that we've got that right.

27:45And I say we've got a lot wrong in that. The reason why we do that is because we think it's bloody tough to be a top-order batter. I think, you know, and you're trying to, you're valuing people for impacting the game in terms of are they contributing to wins? Are they helping you in crucial moments, help you win a game? You know, at times they do that, right? And at times some of them don't. You know, and you're always on that balance of like, you know, we don't want to be in a system where you're just chopping and changing. Have we gone too far at times where we've given too much? Probably yes.

28:18but you're sort of that's the delicate balance that you're always trying to do to make sure that people feel valued and they've got an opportunity and there's some times where we might have been too harsh on people and got rid of them you know so it's not just been that everyone there'll be people around the English game that feel that I've been far too hard on them in that you know but in some cases we've got that wrong in some cases we've got it right one aspect of this tour

28:43Nasser Hussain:fielding, I think Australia by common consent have outshone England in the field, both in terms of catching and their out cricket more generally. You've come without a specialist fielding coach. One of the moves from yourself and Brennan has been to deliberately slim down the backroom staff and the coaching staff. Are you happy with the support the players have got at the moment? Do you need more specialist support? Are you going to move away from having slimmed it down so much so again I'll go through the reasons so when I started I think the huddle there was like 38 people in the huddle and that creates a lot of noise when you've got a lot of support staff around and it's harder to control the messaging stuff like that that you're trying to create you know and at that stage we had a very you know we had a very experienced bowling lineup broad Anderson that probably didn't need a coach stuff like that what we've done here is that we've had tim southey in the lead up you know and this is again one of the realities now is that you know he's got still got franchise opportunity we think he's a fantastic coach he's played t20 cricket he's played that he's doing both red and white ball for us so we thought you know we'd rather have the best coach possible for us for 10 months of the year rather than someone not quite as good for 12 months of the year you know and then we were hoping that you know if he didn't go to the ilt 20 then he'd be able to do the ashes didn't work out like that um and then david saker when you speak to jimmy and broadie would argue that david saker is one of the best bowling coaches around he knows joffra josh tongue people like that he was in perth early so i'm happy in that regard we will try and evolve our bowling coaching provision for the game as much as anything else not just necessarily in this environment but I think you always got to try you always got to be agile in this I don't necessarily think that you know a specialist fielding coach I've seen us drop catches when you've had someone there and when they're not so the reasoning why we have smaller staffs and smaller squads actually I've been pretty happy with but we'll always look at how can we enhance the players in that dressing room and it's always when I started it's always it doesn't matter what I think of the coaches it's what the players think do the players think they those guys can impact their careers make them help them become better players that's the judgment you need you've not been shy of making some left field selections to suit the brand and style of cricket that you want so you went Josh Hull you've gone Jacob Bethel you came on our podcast and said at times the English culture you know they shy away from giving youth a chance and you know other countries do.

31:38Shoaib Bashir high release point I asked this question because they obviously when you go for left field selections and young cricketers with certain cricketers experienced cricketers there's a level of consistency with young left field selections when they're good they're very good and then they can fall off a cliff and I'm not saying Sherry Bashir's done that but obviously he's not at the moment seems selectable how do you get to a situation to Adelaide the one pitch we know in Australia that spins and you have an unselectable frontline spinner so there's a few in there if I go for the Josh Hull one so we became aware because you're you know you're always looking for now and you're looking for the future you know part of this job is to try and help win the ashes the other one is to make sure that English cricket has got the tools to be successful for a generation really so the Josh Hull one you think we need to find a left arm variety option let's try and fast track him not to get him to come in straight away but let's try and help him understand what international cricket is about you know so They're the longer-term bets, stuff like that.

32:50There was an opportunity there that we went for. And who knows where Josh Hull will be in the future. It's not panning out like that, but he's young at the moment. Shabashir, if you go to the Adelaide question. So we got to Adelaide and we ended up hedging our bets. We sat around and we thought, we've got a batting line-up that's struggling. Will Jacks looked in good form at Brisbane. What's our best way? The best way for us to win the game is to get runs. And we wanted to increase that. We knew that it was going to spin. We also knew that Will Jacks probably was going to do what he did with the ball.

33:32Now, I believe that we bowled them out for 370. There was moments in that where they gifted us wickets, sure. They had the schnicko thing as well. Could have been better, could have been worse. our opportunity there packing the batting was to then go and get 500 so you get 370 which i thought was an under par score almost they gave us a lesson in how to bowl on that flat surface and we didn't pan out like that so my point is that that's how we ended up not picking show of bashear so do you think you're right not to play a front line spinner in adelaide 40 degree forecast pitch that spins, foot holes from their left arm as stark.

34:11Do you think it was the right decision not to pick a front line spinner? No, I think it was the hedge that we did. So I still think we could have won. Would it have panned out differently with Shard Bashir? I don't know. That's the problem with these things. You make a decision. They're the reasons for why we did it. Clearly, if you've got someone like Nathan Lyon, you're going to play a spinner all the time. We should have sent Shard Bashir to the game at Canberra so we had more of a read on where he was as well in his game. So we ended up thinking, the way for us to win this game is to score as many runs as possible.

34:49That was it. Clearly, that didn't work. Would we have won? I mean, you can't do a sliding doors. Would we have won with Shabashir? Possibly.