Ashes Review: no single point of failure

PL on the ECB's absolution of Key, McCullum and Stokes' role in Ashes failure

On Christmas Eve, 2024, an injured and emotional Ben Stokes took to social media where he referenced “the Phoenix permanently inked” on his body, and promised to “see you on the field to fuck some shit up”.

After an abysmal Ashes series in which that shit was most certainly fucked up, on the field and off it, “Stokesy” is back on social media with a post to coincide with the release of an ECB report into the shit and its fucking up. The long message features a picture of the three wise men of that tour: Stokes, director of men’s cricket Rob Key and coach Brendon McCullum. The three men most under the pump over England’s Ashes failings.

All three have survived the review of the Ashes debacle, and the skipper was, naturally, on board with that.

Stokes said there’d been smiles and tears, ups and downs, mistakes and examinations, but what the skipper wants you to know is “I F*****G love cricket, I F*****G love this team, I F*****G love being England captain and 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.”

It’s easy to be cynical, but the call to keep the competitive captain in his role was a given. The decision came with the acknowledgment that he and the coach had repaired strains in their relationship; if they hadn’t, presumably it would have been McCullum who wore the cost of that schism. Even allowing for the sometimes self-destructive nature of Stokes captaincy, it was he who acknowledged England’s problems mid-tour, he who adjusted to a better style of play on the field and he who, it could be argued, least deserved to pay the price for failure.