Rob Key on England's Ashes defeat: 'We haven't helped players get to their best'

England's director of cricket, Rob Key, faced the media at the MCG with his side's Ashes campaign already lost at 3-0 down. He placed the blame for the performance gap squarely on the management group.

"My overwhelming thing is actually I feel like we're so much better than what we've played," he said. "The players we had, we haven't helped them get to their best, and that's on us as a set-up."

Key pointed to flawed preparation, particularly the decision to have players participate in a white-ball tour of New Zealand ahead of the Ashes.

"I was of the opinion that we'd go to New Zealand for the white-ball stuff… I've been criticised quite rightly for focussing too much on Test cricket. So you're trying to hedge your bets," he admitted. "We ended up in tough early-season conditions out in New Zealand, where the batters probably did more harm than good."

On England's much-criticised shot selection, Key was blunt.

"There's a real difference between aggression and dumb," he said. "Sometimes we take dumb options, looking to ramp bowlers very early on when you're on 10. Stuff like that is dumb cricket. Too often we take the wrong option. And that's where we've got to get better."

Key acknowledged that England may not have been bold enough with selection decisions during the tour.

"You start looking at some of the decisions that we've made and think, 'Should we have made a change there much sooner?'"

Despite the losses, Key reiterated his faith in head coach Brendon McCullum.

"Brendon's always looking to evolve, really, always looking to change… There's no question we have to evolve it again really," Key stated. "The decision really for the ECB will be whether or not they want to rip it up and start again, or whether they want to evolve and whether we're the right people to do that."

He concluded, "Clearly, we've mucked up on the big occasions… The big ones have eluded us. I still feel like there's plenty of life in this whole thing now, but we have to evolve. We have to make sure that we're doing things better."