I absolutely feel the responsibility of losing this Ashes series: ECB Managing Director Ashley Giles

Things are not going pretty smooth for the English Test team after losing the Ashes in a record 12 days. The team has been criticized by several former cricketers and some even called for the removal of Joe Root and Chris Silverwood from their respective positions. A lot of former cricketers also mentioned that the state of domestic cricket has been very disappointing and it is not able to prepare English cricketers to perform at the highest level.

ECB Managing Director Ashely Giles apologized for the defeat that the team has suffered in the ongoing Ashes series. He even mentioned that a systematic change is the need of the hour, but mass sacking won’t change the fortune of the English team.

“I absolutely feel the responsibility of losing this Ashes series,” Giles told BBC Sport. “We all do and we can only apologise. I know there will be a lot of emotion, a lot of anger about how we’ve lost it. But we know it’s not an easy place to come. In the last 34 years we’ve come here and won once (in 2010-11),” he added.

“Unless we look at more systemic change, a collective responsibility, and collective solutions, we can’t make whatever changes we want. You can change me, we can change the head coach and change the captain, but we’re only setting up future leaders for failure. That’s all we do. It’s only pushing it down the road,” Giles said.

ECB will review the tour: Ashley Giles

The former English spinner also mentioned that the ECB is going to review this tour. He also said that the English team should play some good cricket in the remaining two matches and end the tour on a positive note. “We will review the tour, obviously. Everything will be on table. We’ve got two Test matches left, the series might be lost, but we’ve got two matches we can make an impact on and we’ve got to try to,” Giles further said.

Ashley Giles also blamed England’s domestic cricket for not preparing players to perform in foreign conditions. England lost nine Test matches in 2021 including Ashes and the batters failed to perform their designated task. No batters apart from Root had a significant contribution for England in Test cricket last year.

“Are we creating (domestic) conditions that will allow us to better prepare our cricketers for playing in the conditions out here? I’m not sure we are at the moment. What we play, when we play, on what (pitches) we play – that’s a collective responsibility. It’s up to us as ECB but also a conversation to have with the counties,” he said.