England sticking with Key, McCullum and Stokes despite Ashes humbling

LONDON (AP) — England is not sacking anybody following the 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia.

A review of the tour by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced within hours of the final match in January, was concluded on Monday. Firing people would “be the easy thing to do,” ECB chief executive Richard Gould said but he insisted, “This is not the time to throw everything out.”

Managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes kept their jobs after the best England side to go to Australia in 14 years lost the Ashes in 11 days with two games to spare.

“Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That’s not the route that we’re going to take,” Gould said. “I’ve seen the driving ambition and determination that we’re lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward.”

Stokes welcomed the decision in a post on Instagram and said the last three months were the hardest of his captaincy.

“Baz,Rob and myself have the passion and desire to take this team forward, we are going to give you everything we have, we know we made mistakes along the way and we have learnt from those mistakes, you learn more from failure than success,” Stokes wrote. “I have got so much more to give to this role and I’m so happy that I get to do it with Baz and Rob.

“Being England captain … I do not take it for granted,” he added. “It has its highs and it has its lows, it makes you want to smile it makes you want to cry. It completely and utterly consumes you and feels like it’s the only thing in your life at times.”

Gould previously was the chief executive of Bristol City soccer club and said the ECB would not follow the same route as soccer’s hire-and-fire culture.

“Cricket is a very unique sport in that it takes a team of leadership … it’s not like football where there’s a single point of failure or success with a manager,” he said. He added the ECB would not “select or deselect management based on a popularity campaign.”

The main criticisms of England’s tour were poor preparation, player misbehavior, and selection mistakes.

At a press conference at Lord’s, Gould and Key said McCullum and Stokes have not had a “bust up,” they did not want McCullum to “completely change” but “to evolve,” the behavior of some players was “unprofessional,” there will be more consequences for underperforming, and a commitment to “better long-term planning” ahead of major test series.

Some changes were already implemented for the Twenty20 World Cup, where England reached the semifinals. Gould implied that performance saved McCullum.

Key acknowledged that England supporters would be disappointed to see the management team go unpunished.

“I know people want punishment and that people then should be sacked for that,” Key said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t feel like we’ve gone through some serious pain: Brendon, myself, Ben. It’s been as tough a time as I think I’ve had.”

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AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket