England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) director of men’s cricket Rob Key has slammed the England white-ball players for their words during the press conferences and post-match presentations. He also rejected the allegations that the national cricket team did not do enough training during ODIs against India and in the Champions Trophy,

England failed to qualify for the semis of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, losing all of their group matches to South Africa, Australia, and Afghanistan. As a result, Jos Buttler stepped down as white-ball captain of the England side.

Some of their publicity comments backfired when England players insisted on playing an entertaining brand of cricket despite continuing to lose.  

Former England hitter Key stated that England players are serious about their jobs, but they must quit saying "rubbish" in press conferences.

“I have no issue with the way our guys go about things, but there’s no doubt that we’ve got to get better when we’re doing interviews when players are doing their post-match press conferences, we speak a lot of rubbish a lot of the time,” Key reporters at Lord’s on Thursday, quoted by ESPNCricinfo.

“They’re trying so hard to not sort of upset players in the dressing room, not try and give away something that they don’t think they should, and then they end up creating headlines through that. But I don’t kill people for the things they say,” he added.

Key added: “There’s not a world in wwhichwe think the players don’t care, that they don’t want to go and get big scores, that they don’t care about winning, that they’re arrogant.

“That’s absolutely not true. Half the time when they’re getting themselves into trouble it’s because they’re actually trying to concentrate so hard that they end up making mistakes. Sometimes they’re reckless, sometimes they make the wrong decision at the wrong time, but that’s the game, right?”

Furthermore, Rob Key hinted that Test captain Ben Stokes is in contention for the England ODI captain job as well. Key and head coach Brendon McCullum must decide how to best replace Jos Buttler as white-ball captain, who stood down following England's Champions Trophy group stage loss.

“Nothing is off the table. You look at every single option and think, ‘What is the best thing to do?’ Ben Stokes is one of the best captains I’ve ever seen. It would be stupid not to look at him. It’s just the knock-on effect of what that means,” Key said.

“He’s an unbelievably good tactician, which we’ve seen in Test cricket, but he’s a leader of men. He’s someone who gets the best out of people. He’s someone that, when the pressure is really on, he’s able to throw a blanket around the players and actually say, ’no, no, this is the way forward. Keep going with it’.

They’re the qualities that you need in leadership. Ben’s, as we know, an outstanding player, an outstanding leader. It’s more about, what would that then mean to him? What would that then mean to his workload?

We don’t want to risk other things as well. But there’s always a way in England, I think, where you start looking at, ‘What if it goes wrong?’ You’ve also got to think, ‘What if it goes right?’. They’re the decisions that I have to make,” Key stated.

All-round seam bowler. Stokes last played ODI cricket in the 2023 World Cup, when he came out of retirement from 50-over cricket. He was also anticipated to play for England in the Champions Trophy 2025, but a hamstring injury sustained during the third Test against New Zealand in late 2024 took him out of contention.