The decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board to retain Brendon McCullum as coach, Ben Stokes as captain and managing director Rob Key after England’s underwhelming Ashes tour of Australia has drawn sharp criticism and warnings.
Aussie great Adam Gilchrist said the current regime must learn from its mistakes and adapt, while fellow legend Mark Waugh backed the leadership to respond quickly, insisting they will be aware of the need for change.
Speaking to Fox Sports, Gilchrist said the relatively short gap before the next Ashes series, this time in England, may have worked in favour of McCullum and Stokes.
“It’s only 14 or 15 months till that Ashes return series starts, so you probably think, ‘well, it might be a bit too short a term to put a whole broom through and start a fresh approach with someone else’,” Gilchrist said.
“So maybe that’s worked in their favour, and the fact that the recently completed T20 World Cup was on, of course, and they got through and ended up having a pretty successful tournament in that regard (also helped).”
However, Gilchrist warned that underlying issues within the system cannot be ignored, pointing to recent remarks by Liam Livingstone. The England all-rounder had alleged poor communication within the setup, claiming he received little to no feedback from coaches.
“Look, they’ve got to change something,” he said. “The more we learnt (about the) ill-discipline that was filtering throughout that group, where it didn’t seem to allow them to play their best cricket – whether that’s an accurate assessment, that’s the observation, because we didn’t know much through (the summer) – but all we saw and heard about was ‘We’re all good. We’re happy. The tent is happy.’
“But already there’s some little fractures appearing from other people’s comments that weren’t so comfortable, the likes of Liam Livingstone and so on. But they’ve survived. It’s up to them now whether they think they need to change the approach.”
Waugh, meanwhile, stressed that England must evolve their approach in Test cricket after falling short against top opposition.
“It was probably a 50-50 call,” he said. “A lot of people probably thought England maybe needed a new direction but they have showed faith in Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes who, since they have taken over, had done a pretty good job initially playing games and winning with a very positive attitude. But in the real tests against the top teams they have fallen short.
“But there is no doubt they have to change their ways. Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, they are not stupid. They will realise the mistakes they made on the tour in Australia. They are going to have a chance to turn that around.”
While the Bazball approach has delivered results on flatter tracks, England have struggled in more testing conditions — particularly in India in 2024 and Australia in 2025/26.
“The basics of playing cricket and playing to win, that is really good, but you need more than one game plan, especially against good teams. You are probably going to lose games you should win if you are just going to play one way,” Waugh said.
“I’m sure they will have learnt their lessons, and if they haven’t learnt their lessons, they are going to get the same results for the next 12 months and lose more than they win. The proof is going to be in the pudding. Let’s see if they learn from their mistakes.”
