England’s managing director of men’s cricket Rob Key spoke only to the English media on Tuesday, and vowed to investigate the drinking habits of his team, following a report in the London Telegraph that the team’s mid-Ashes beach break at Noosa resembled a “stag do”.
The tourists had a Queensland getaway between the second and third Tests, the time off planned pre-series to help the players refresh.
Work to do: Batter Harry Brook and the ECB’s director of men’s cricket Rob Key in conversation.Credit: Getty Images
Key, who did not attend the Noosa trip, said heavy drinking was unacceptable – if that was proven to have occurred.
“If there’s things where people are saying that our players went out and drank excessively, then of course we’ll be looking into that,” Key told British media in widely circulated reports.
“Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol for an international cricket team is not something that I’d expect to see at any stage, and it would be a fault not to look into what happened there. From everything that I’ve heard so far, they actually were pretty well behaved. Very well behaved.
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“We’ve got enough ways of finding out exactly what happened and everything that I’ve heard so far [is] that they sat down, had lunch, had dinner, didn’t go out late, all of that, had the odd drink. I don’t mind that. If it goes past that, then that’s an issue as far as I’m concerned.”
Key revealed he had investigated reports players were seen drinking the night before a match in New Zealand on their tour before the Ashes.
A social media clip posted by a member of the public showed white-ball skipper Brook and Jacob Bethell out in Wellington.
“I didn’t feel like that was worthy of formal warnings, but it was probably worthy of informal ones,” Key said.
Australian media did not get the chance to probe Key or any of the tourists on Tuesday, for their lunchtime press conference at the MCG was unexpectedly cancelled.
“An update from us, we won’t put anyone up today,” a team spokesman said.
“Thanks for your co-operation.”
Key’s comments came as former Ashes-winning captain Andrew Strauss suggested a full review was required.
Strauss was tasked with reviewing the 4-0 series defeat of 2021-22, but his recommendations, including slashing the number of first-class matches, restructuring the County Championship and strengthening elite player development, were largely ignored.
“So there it is, another ambitious set of England cricketers made the journey to Australia, full of hope and optimism only for their dreams to come crashing down around them after only 11 days of cricket,” Strauss wrote on LinkedIn.
“[Brendon] McCullum and Stokes will come under extreme scrutiny for the decisions they took in preparation for this tour in the same way that [Ashley] Giles and [Chris] Silverwood did after the last tour. And Andy Flower after 2013-14 and Duncan Fletcher after 2006-07.
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“While they will know that this goes with the territory, none of the above are responsible for England losing so incredibly consistently in Australia since 1986-87. We have been badly mauled time after time over there because Australia are a better team, served by a better high-performance system.
“If we are genuinely serious about changing this depressingly one-sided story, then we need to look beyond sacking England coaches and captains and ask whether we are genuinely willing to make the changes necessary to break the trend.”
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