Can you share your learnings? England have had a terrible World Cup. Tell us two things you learned?
“No, no.”
Do you not have a duty to share with the fans?
“Not really. There are enough strong opinions here.”
Are you sure?
“Whatever.”
No public duty?
“Thank you.”
These were the last words of coach Matthew Mott at the end of England’s catastrophic World Cup in India. Bitter, entitled and lacking self-awareness, the Australian certainly did not cover himself in glory with this blundering final address.
Somehow, after overseeing perhaps the worst World Cup defence ever seen in any sport, Mott will cling onto his job until at least the end of next summer’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and USA.
Speaking at the team hotel in Kolkata the morning after England’s final group match against Pakistan, Rob Key, the director of men’s cricket who holds Mott’s future in his hands, took full responsibility for this shambolic tournament, admitting he had prioritised the Test team ahead of white-ball cricket since coming into the job last year.
“I look at what I’ve not done rather than blaming everyone else,” he said. “I find it a funny position to be in where I’m blaming Matthew Mott for this when many conversations I’ve had to say ‘right, Matthew, sorry, you’re not going to have your best team. You’re not going to have Joe Root, Ben Stokes, because the Test team’s going to get that. I’m sorry that’s going to happen.’
“So the first time it goes wrong, I’m not going to sit here and go, ‘you should have done this, you should have done that.’
“As far I’m concerned he gets my full backing and an opportunity to try and turn it around.”
Key implied Mott will have until the end of the T20 World Cup in June to do just that when asked if there is a good enough chemistry between the coach and captain Jos Buttler.
“Something that makes life harder for them is that people talk about Bazball,” he said referencing the strong relationship between Test coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes. “I feel this actually should be the making of those two as a partnership. If it isn’t, it isn’t and you move on but we have to make sure some good comes out of what has been a very poor World Cup.”
Key spoke with the gravitas of a leader who was fully aware of how truly abysmal this World Cup has been for England. He blamed himself for not hiring a local coach to come into the camp to help assess conditions, as Mike Hussey had done so successfully during last year’s T20 World Cup win in Australia.
Yet the example he gave, pointing to the decision to field first in 37-degree heat against South Africa in Mumbai, did not paint the current brains trust in a great light.
“I’ve set up a coaching team that had no local experience really,” Key said. “So when you get to somewhere like Mumbai – and it all seems so simple now – and you’re worried about dew and all of this stuff, actually someone who knows these conditions really well says ‘by the way, it’s hotter than the sun out there; make sure you have a bat,’ you know?”
Asked why it wasn’t Mott’s job to recognise what was painfully obvious to everyone in Mumbai that day, Key replied: “I think the buck stops with everyone. Yeah, Matthew Mott should have known that, we all should have known that.”
Unlike Key, Mott’s own assessment of what went wrong at the World Cup left a lot to be desired. Before his petulant finale, he had earlier refused to enlighten the travelling UK media about what he had learned from an embarrassing campaign.
Obviously irked by the bad press he has got amid talk he’s lost the dressing-room, Mott said: “It’s probably not for me to share with you guys. That’s for you guys to work out. There’s always little things, subtle things. But I’m sure there’s enough public comment out there for you to be able to pick that up and make your own decisions.”
His take on a tournament where he has overseen six defeats in nine games as England scrambled at the last to qualify for the 2025 Champions Trophy was verging on the deluded.
“We’ve tried hard this whole tournament,” he said. “I’m really impressed with the professionalism. We wanted to make sure we left here with the Champions Trophy. We will admit we haven’t got absolutely everything right but we have also done a lot of good things.”
According to Mott, the fact England had exited early was okay because other teams had also performed below expectations.
“There’s plenty of teams which are going to go from here very disappointed as well,” he said. “There’s only one team that can win it. I’m pretty comfortable in my skin.”
Then there was his verdict on Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali, two players whose absence from next month’s ODI series in the West Indies indicates the end of their careers in this format.
“They’re the heart and soul of our team,” said Mott.
Mixed messages until the very end. It summed up perfectly England’s campaign under the deeply unimpressive leadership of Mott.
Rob Key denies central contract announcement contributed to World Cup chaos
Director of cricket Rob Key has denied announcing a new round of central contracts in the middle of England’s World Cup campaign destabilised the squad in India but admitted he had no choice about the timing because he feared details would be leaked to the media.
Key cited the case of Test captain Ben Stokes, who turned down a three-year deal as England rolled out multi-year contracts for the first time, as the reason why he made the potentially divisive announcement two days before a crucial World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Bangalore.
The fact David Willey, the only player in the squad not to land a deal, announced his retirement from international cricket during the tournament did nothing to quell rumours that the issue had caused divisions in the camp.
But Key, speaking after England finished a shambolic campaign with a convincing win against Pakistan in Kolkata, said: “I don’t see it as a contentious issue apart from David Willey. Everyone knew around the 19th September. It was before the Ireland series. They all knew where they stood. I spoke a lot to David and he clearly wasn’t happy.
“They all got their offers, things going backwards and forwards between the lawyers with terms of conditions. All they had to do was say how many years. In the middle of the tournament everyone signed their contracts. I made the decision when Ben Stokes said he only wanted a one-year deal. Since I have started this job every single thing ended up in the media. Players have agents. There are links everywhere as you know.
“My decision was we were going to get ahead of this, be as transparent as we can and explain what has happened and why. That is why we did it. It is never an easy job. People said why didn’t we put them off? Had we not done that we would have been losing in this World Cup and the story would have been no player knew his future, no player has a contract. We have spoken to players and don’t think it was a distraction.
“Ben Stokes and Jack Leach aren’t on the same deal, and everyone accepts it. There’s probably a hierarchy in this room. That’s the way life works. The speculation that came from that didn’t have any bearing really about how we played at the World Cup.”
