McCullum and Key cannot survive this

PL is humming Tom T Hall as England flew over his house last night

I lay in bed after the final day of the 2025-26 Ashes, listening to the rumble of planes carrying the English cricket team and its fans heading back toward the old country, and couldn’t help but think about the mood of those strapped into their seats as they flew over my house.

Gideon and I had digested the news about Harry Brook’s serious disciplinary breach over dinner, ruminated over the fact that team management and the ECB had tried to keep the matter quiet, and that they’d continued with the same free-spirited attitude to intoxication in the controversial Noosa break that followed.

The story of the one-day captain’s altercation with a bouncer on the eve of a game in New Zealand broke after the final day’s play in the London Telegraph.

This fart before leaving the room is reminiscent of England brushing the Australians for a drink at the end of the 2023 series; an unfortunate encore to what had already been an unsettling show. But it’s much more serious than that snub.

McCullum and Key simply cannot survive this.