Cricket World Cup: Rob Key takes blame for England's disappointing campaign – 'I hold myself accountable'

England director of cricket Rob Key says he holds himself "accountable" for the country's dismal campaign at the 2023 Cricket World Cup.

England lost six of their nine matches at the tournament in India, beating only Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Pakistan. Defeats came against New Zealand, Afghanistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia and India.

The defending champions, who had been World Cup favourites, subsequently finished seventh out of the 10 competing teams.

Key has defended captain Jos Buttler and coach Matthew Mott, rejecting the idea that the pair lacked chemistry.

"I don’t think [a lack of chemistry] is the case," he said. "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.

"It’s very hard for me to be critical of Jos Buttler and Matthew Mott, when I’m the one who, every single time the decision has been made for whether or not we focus on 50-over cricket, Test cricket or T20, I’ve always chosen Test cricket.

"I hold myself accountable for a lot of it really. I’ve set up a coaching team that had no local experience, really."

Key expanded on his final point, acknowledging that England were guilty of "overthinking" a number of decisions.

"You look at the way that the last couple of games we played, if we won the toss, we had a bat," he said.

"We didn't know that at the start. We weren't married to a way of what was our best way to go about things and that was due at times to a lot of overthinking.

"We almost probably felt like we've got a good understanding of things here, when the dew comes down and then it actually becomes easier to bat.

"But that wasn't the case if you didn't get through to the dew, if you were six or seven down by that time. So I think we underestimated how tough it was going to be in those conditions and we got a lot wrong."

Key admitted it would have been useful to have someone with "local knowledge" in the wider team, who would likely have advised against England’s decision to bat second against South Africa and subject themselves to fielding in the worst of Mumbai’s blazing heat.

"When you get to somewhere like Mumbai, and it all seems so simple now, you're worried about dew and all of this stuff," Key said.

"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'. We got so caught up in what was going to happen five or six hours down the line."

Key’s comments come as a new-look squad was selected for England’s white-ball tour of the West Indies, which will be shown live on TNT Sports from December 3-21.

Jos Buttler remains as captain, while Harry Brook, Gus Atkinson, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone and Brydon Carse are the only players chosen from the World Cup squad for both the three ODIs and five T20s.

Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid and Chris Woakes are only included for the T20 matches, while Dawid Malan has been left out entirely.

Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Mark Wood have been rested ahead of England’s Test series against India in January, while Ben Stokes is set to have knee surgery next week.

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