England admit everything went wrong in the Ashes – so why is nobody to blame?

stripped-back “There is a big brain that is working through every decision and action. ” And with that, ECB chief executive Richard Gould’s rallying cry, played on a kazoo, was complete. Brendon McCullum remains the man to take England forward as the head coach.

The news from today, in truth, is that there is no news. McCullum was the men’s head coach yesterday, and he will be the men’s head coach tomorrow. Rob Key , the men’s managing director, will keep his job, and so too will the captain Ben Stokes .

Bloodlust rarely leads to progress. You need only look to the conveyor belt of managers in the Premier League, or of prime ministers at No 10, to tell you that change isn’t a guarantee of success. But the feeling that apathy has won the day in ECB towers is hard to shake.

An hour-long press conference at Lord’s, conducted by Gould and Key, where they laid out all the mistakes that had been made in recent times, delivered the conclusion that the best people to learn from those mistakes were the guilty parties in the first place. “When you see where Test cricket has come in this country in the last four years,” said Gould, “This is not the time to throw everything out. ” Gould’s opinion is not without reason.