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England captain Ben Stokes cuts a forlorn look at a press conference following one of the Ashes Tests against Australia in December 2025. (AFP)
Geoffrey Boycott bemoaned a lack of accountability in English cricket after the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) decided to retain head coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key following a review of the team’s humbling 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia.
The former England opener questioned ECB Chief Executive Richard Gould’s credentials and said the “incompetent” Key and McCullum had “sabotaged” England’s Ashes campaign.
“Like me, cricket supporters will be asking how McCullum and Key could make so many bad decisions on the Australian tour and yet the chief executive of English cricket decides there is no need to make any changes. Where is the accountability?” Boycott wrote in the Telegraph.
“I’m sure they promised him they would do better, but leopards don’t change their spots, so it looks like we will get the same type of Test cricket.”
Boycott said he admired McCullum for getting the team to play aggressive and exciting cricket but felt the players had grown complacent under the former New Zealand captain.
“In trying to create a free-spirited team, he has made them too comfortable and complacent. They know they will not get dropped, whatever their performances or conduct on or off the field.
“It looks like a boys’ club where, once you are in the team, it is hard to get out… Competition for places is the lifeblood of sport. Complacency in a team does not breed a good appetite to excel.”
Former England captains Michael Vaughan and Mike Atherton said Key and McCullum were lucky to retain their jobs. “There’s not many management groups that deliver something so poor away from home in an Ashes series and get the chance to carry on,” Vaughan told BBC Test Match Special. “They’ve had some exciting times, but they haven’t won enough.
“What England fans are looking for now is, what change (will happen)?”
Atherton said English supporters would find “the lack of accountability hard to stomach”.
“In most walks of life, such a litany of mistakes would result in some significant change,” he wrote in the Times.
“There will be limited patience if the general public do not sense a shift in attitude this summer from players who, they felt, were too slapdash during a 4-1 Ashes defeat.”
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