‘Bazball as we knew it is in the skip – but McCullum has England future’

Make no mistake: England lost in the Ashes. Very poor

This is the most disappointing of all the Australian trips I’ve been to.

England is not a terrible team. They only have a passing chance to defeat Australia. However, they are now 3-0 up after much of their own making.

That is incredibly frustrating.

Because they didn’t give themselves the best chance, they simply had to come back to their preparations after making their decision not to play any proper warm-up games.

Coach Brendon McCullum now acknowledges that was an error, and he can now see that as a significant improvement. After all the discussion, imagine how hurtful it must have been for him to admit that.

I and many others would have been unsure whether he should still be in the position if he had steadfastly adhered to his guns, as this England hierarchy has done before.

I’m hopeful that McCullum and Ben Stokes will have a place in England’s Test team in the future because of what he has done.

Stokes’ answers to questions from his press conference suggested that he is determined to keep going. In the middle of a series, he was always going to say that, but if he felt like doing so, he made the right choice.

When Stokes plays, England remain a better-led force. He is hurting, upset, and angry as I looked in his eyes today.

It would be a huge ask for someone else to join the ranks alongside Stokes because he is the team’s heartbeat and a major part of the dressing room. And it’s unclear who that person would be, especially given Harry Brook’s lack of maturity as vice-captain.

I was beginning to wonder if Brendon had been speaking to anyone other than me as I spoke to him outfield.

After this tour, he and everyone else in charge of the England and Wales Cricket Board were expected to give an account to them. This sent a message to his employers.

A response that was unreliable might not have washed.

That leaves managing director Rob Key looking the most vulnerable right now, largely due to Richard Gould and Richard Thompson, the latter’s easiest for the bosses to remove.

They, in my opinion, are far too similar as a trio.

When England were at their best, they had opponents like Michael Vaughan’s 2005 captain and coach Duncan Fletcher or the stern Eoin Morgan and Trevor Bayliss, who won the 2019 World Cup.

Key is a lovely person, but he might consider whether he allowed McCullum and Stokes to possess too much.

Although McCullum and Stokes are both excellent on-field players, they needed to be guided in the right direction with their preparation and planning.

Being someone who will keep Stokes and McCullum’s feet to the fire instead of challenging that, Key approved.

After all the excellent work he has done at Surrey, Alec Stewart is a clear choice to challenge ideas and keep an eye on the change.

England has some respectable players, such as Jamie Smith and Zak Crawley, who both scored 85 in the previous two Tests.

Yes, he had a bad Sunday, but he had a really good 60 in the second inning after struggling so much.

That simply returns to the process of preparation.

After the second Test in Brisbane, I joked in vain that England would perform well in Adelaide because of their two warm-ups.

Look what occurred.

We could be in for a very different situation if they had won the second day of the series in Perth by batting from their position of strength.

And if Stokes and McCullum are indeed in a reflective mood, they must also take into account the surroundings in their dressing room.

Never having played a match against a pink ball before, three England players arrived for the day-night Test in Brisbane. If they could specify that they wanted to travel to Canberra to play in the game as a pre-game preparation, the environment would be much healthier.

As much as McCullum enjoys discussing reducing pressure, there must also be discussion and discussion in the dressing room as well.

Bazball, as we already knew, is in the skip. That is no longer.

However, the words and how Crawley batted on Saturday and Brook in the first innings both gave me encouragement.

There might be a future if this is the beginning of a more mature and thought-provoking tempo, supported by field-based change.