India, March 24 -- England's Ashes review was never going to be about whether the ECB could produce a neat internal document after a 4-1 defeat in Australia. It was always going to be about what that defeat had exposed: the limits of England's current red-ball model, the standards inside the dressing room, and the question of whether the people in charge were still the right ones to take the side forward.

What emerged from the review was not a dramatic clear-out but something more revealing. The ECB chose to keep faith with Brendon McCullum, Ben Stokes, Rob Key and Harry Brook, while also admitting that England's Test set-up had drifted in important areas. The review has not been published in full, but the messages emerging from it are c...