England are returning home after a bitter defeat in the SEZ series. England were almost lopsidedly defeated 4-1 in the series at the hands of Australia. Despite this, it is likely that captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum will not lose their positions.

Stokes has already said that learning is the way to move forward. The visiting team arrived in Australia in November with high hopes. They had the opportunity to win the Ashes on Australian soil for the first time since 2010-2011. But what happened, England lost the series within 11 days of the match. 

England lost the first three Tests within 11 days and the team suddenly fell behind 3-0. After that, the only issue left to play in the series was self-respect. Despite this somewhat embarrassing defeat, not only McCullum and Stokes, but also England's director of cricket Rob Key will not lose their jobs. There is a solid reason for this.

McCullum is not only England's Test cricket coach, he also has a 'white ball' team on his shoulders. And there is also the Twenty20 World Cup to be held in India and Sri Lanka next month. And, England will not play Test cricket until June before hosting New Zealand. Stokes had also expressed his desire to continue leading the team after the five-wicket defeat in the final Test in Sydney.

At that time, he had vowed to bring everyone to the right place. Coach McCullum also seems to agree with this fact and said that there are many places in the England team now that need improvement.

But he does not want to reveal what these places are. Under the leadership of this former New Zealand captain, England has played very aggressively. Will this policy continue in the future, the main question is whether McCullum himself wants to change it, that is also in his place.

The England team has now been criticized on three issues. First, they did not practice enough before the start of the Ashes series, so the preparation was very poor. Then there was a lack of specialist coaches in the team.

Third, the players' behavior was not good, the players were not behind in discipline. That too, especially in their off-field activities. But the main thing was that the average Australian bowling attack managed to weaken England's 'buzzball' strategy.

The home team was the same, whose captain Pat Cummins could only play one Test due to injury. On the other hand, Josh Hazlewood missed the entire series, due to injury. England's area of ​​failure was large, the batsmen could not play according to their reputation and on more than one occasion the team fell victim to dramatic collapse. And both the bowling and fielding were poor.

Moreover, England could not show any edge in bowling. Geoffrey Boycott is seen as England's biggest critic. He is the only batsman in history who has won the Ashes in Australia. He believes that England's strategy did not work.

He also wrote in the Daily Telegraph, ‘Most importantly, Brendon McCullum, Rob Key and Ben Stokes have been lying for the last three years. McCullum’s philosophy is to play as you please, not to care about what the situation demands.’

Boycott added, ‘According to the coach, if you play well and show your ability, it is not your fault if you get out in the process. Now, if someone in the England team does something wrong, they do not take responsibility for it. Moreover, they do not fear being dropped from the team for playing badly. That means they do the same thing over and over again.’ When England went on tour, they thought that their team had a pace attack that could put pressure on the home team.

But what happened was that part-time off-spinner Will Jacks played as many Tests as the two injured fast bowlers Mark Wood and Jofra Archer played together. Off-spinner Shoaib Bashir is considered the future of England cricket, but he has not played a single Test. Jack Bethwell scored a brilliant century in Sydney. This is both a strength and a weakness of the English team. It was also his first first-class century.

England could have relied on him a lot, but he has not been used when he was needed. He has not played well for England since his debut against New Zealand two years ago. But the 22-year-old left-handed batsman played an innings of 154 runs in Sydney, which is to be commended. But it also had its flaws. Justin Langer rightly said that Bethwell's performance was entertaining and he was hitting the ball as hard as he could.

When McCullum and Stokes were in charge of the England team, the team's performance was also very poor. But England won 10 of the first 11 Tests since they arrived. But now England have lost 14 of their last 28 Tests. And England have not beaten Australia or India in a five-Test series, home or away, since 2018.

Meanwhile, Stokes himself admits, ‘We are losing more games now than we are winning. We want to win big series but we are not doing that. We have to be very honest about that fact. We have to look at where we are. In fact, we are tarnishing our image.’ At the same time, the England and Wales Cricket Board has said that it will conduct a serious investigation into how the team’s poor performance came about.