After a chaotic and miserable eight months, in which England’s Test team lost the Ashes in Australia, a home series against New Zealand, a captain, a coach, their once rampant self-confidence and a fair amount of respect, the appointment of Stephen Fleming gives them a chance to pivot towards a future that suddenly looks beguilingly bright, if mainly because for now it exists only in the imagination.
On Friday, Rob Key, the managing director of men’s cricket since April 2022, refused to admit to making any mistakes in that time. But as he explained the process behind Fleming’s recruitment, he occasionally and inadvertently damned himself. When he spoke about creating an environment designed to hone “all these players with so much potential who need refinement”, he said: “A lot of it’s about, can we bring someone in who can get this team to do the basics bloody well?” It probably didn’t need to take four years to realise such a person might be useful.
