The two men England should appoint after sacking Key and McCullum

With Ben Stokes now gone as captain, English cricket enters a new era. Yet it seems that both coach Brendon McCullum and director of cricket Rob Key will remain in their jobs.

This is despite England’s Test team winning just two of their past 10 matches – with those victories at Melbourne and Lord’s coming on pitches of such questionable quality that the outcome of both games were a lottery.

On top of all this, the defeat by New Zealand saw England lose their first home series of three or more Tests in 14 years. The last Test series win under McCullum came back in December 2024, in New Zealand.

Both the coach and Key, who were responsible for the team’s ludicrously inadequate Ashes preparation, should have been sacked after last winter’s 4-1 defeat in Australia.

But the two men at the top of English cricket, chair Richard Thompson and chief executive Richard Gould, backed them both.

Despite Stokes departing – and he was the one figure at the ECB nobody outside of the organisation wanted to see depart – it is understood both McCullum and Key retain the support of the two men at the very top.

Speaking after the third Test in Nottingham, McCullum said as much: “We have constant communication with the two Richards in particular and there’s a really good working relationship across the entire ECB. I feel very lucky to have had their support throughout my time so far and I’m pretty sure the plan is we just keep cracking on.”

Yet this really doesn’t wash with the vast majority of supporters who have seen only more turmoil since last winter’s Ashes. After that calamity, with both on and off-field humiliations almost too much to bear, we were promised a change in approach from McCullum and the team.

Gould and Key sat in the ECB boardroom at Lord’s in March promising change even though they didn’t enact any.

It should be no surprise that what has followed has been even more off-field dramas and results stubbornly refusing to get better.

Stokes is responsible for setting in train the psychodrama that followed his curfew-busting night out at the Rex Rooms after the first Test against New Zealand at Lord’s.

But the ECB’s handling of the whole affair was amateurish. With less than a year now until the start of the 2027 Ashes, big decisions need to be made at the very top of the ECB to get this team winning again.

Sacking Key and McCullum should be the only option right now. If Stokes has gone, let’s have a complete reboot and try and get the Test team competitive again by the time Australians arrive here next summer. This loose, unprofessional regime overseen by Key and McCullum has had enough chances. Stokes’ departure should be the final straw.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan said as much on BBC Test Match Special on Monday: “I’ll be absolutely staggered if this leadership group is still together [by the 2027 Ashes].”

It was also telling that after speaking with such clarity in his final press conference about how Harry Brook should “100 per cent” take over his job as Test captain, Stokes refused to back either of Key or McCullum.

Asked if they were the right men to take English cricket forward, he said: “I’m done now. I don’t have to make those decisions, I don’t have to be involved in all that kind of stuff. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my four-and-a-half years working with Brendon and Rob and then there’s other decisions to be made that I don’t have to give a s**t about now.”

Alluding to the fact there is more to be said about his retirement and the widely reported tensions behind the scenes between himself, Key and McCullum, particularly in the aftermath of that post-Lord’s night out, Stokes said in the same press conference to the journalist he has previously worked with on autobiographies: “We’ve got a good third book potentially.”

That will all come out in good time. But for now, the ECB should enact a thorough cleansing. To make it more palatable for the two Richards, who both previously worked at Surrey, this is my suggestion.

Tell McCullum to stand down as Test coach and replace him with Gareth Batty, who has done a remarkable job as Surrey coach. He is young, English, hungry for success and is incredibly sharp.

McCullum can stay on as white-ball coach until the end of the 2027 World Cup. But he can’t have that job and oversee the Test team. The decision to allow him to take on both roles early last year has backfired spectacularly.

Doing both with any kind of success is nigh on impossible. The logistics alone are a nightmare. This week for example, the day after this Test in Nottingham finished, McCullum will oversee a training session for the T20 team in Durham ahead of the start of their series against India on Wednesday. What the actual?

As for replacing Key. Why not appoint an English cricketing legend, and all-round no-nonsense character, Alec Stewart. Currently director of cricket at Surrey, the well-respected former England captain would probably be keen on the job if it became available. He would be the perfect fit.

As I stated earlier, it seems this is all very unlikely because the two Richards at the top of the ECB are keen on sticking with the status quo. They just need to be aware that if this all ends with Australia winning their first away Ashes series in a quarter of a century next summer, they would not survive the brutal cull that would undoubtedly follow.