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England arrived in Australia with high hopes. Touted as the best England team in over a decade, Ben Stokes' side fell as flat as the pitches back home. As they lost the Adelaide Test and Australia retained the Ashes 2025-26, their four-night stay at Noosa, a resort town on the Queensland is set to be investigated. After reports of excessive drinking surfaced, England's Director of Cricket, Rob Key, has pledged to investigate what happened on the trip orchestrated by head coach Brendon McCullum after the eight wicket defeat in the pink-ball Test at The Gabba.
"If there's things where people are saying that our players went out and drank excessively then of course we'll be looking into that," Key said. "Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol for an international cricket team is not something that I'd expect to see at any stage, and it would be a fault not to look into what happened there. But from everything that I've heard so far, they were very well behaved.
"I've read what's been written in the last day or so, and if it goes into where they're drinking lots and it's a stag do, all that type of stuff, that's completely unacceptable. I'm not a drinker. I think a drinking culture doesn't help anyone in any stretch whatsoever.
"I have no issue with the Noosa trip if it was to get away and just throw your phone away, down tools, go on the beach… Everything that I've heard so far is that they sat down, had lunch, had dinner, didn't go out late, had the odd drink. I don't mind that. If it goes past that, then that's an issue as far as I'm concerned… There's lots of people there that might disagree with that, but that's what we'll find out."
Key warned 2 youngsters weeks ahead of Ashes
Key also revealed that he had informally warned T20I and ODI captain Harry Brook and young all-rounder Jacob Bethell after a video of them drinking at a bar on the eve of third ODI in New Zealand went viral.
"I don't mind players having a glass of wine over dinner. Anything more than that I think is ridiculous, really," Key said. "There wasn't any formal action… I didn't feel like that was worthy of formal warnings, but it was probably worthy of informal ones."
Brook has been criticised for his shot selection whereas Bethell is yet to make his Ashes debut. The southpaw has played a few first-class games on the tour, representing England Lions.
Key confirms England opted out of warm-up game
Key confirmed that England had the opportunity to play a warm-up game in Adelaide leading up to the Ashes but they opted not to. Instead, they opted to play an intra-squad game featuring players from England Lions at Lilac Hill in Perth.
"I don't necessarily believe that had we just gone and played there then we'd now be 3-0 up in the Ashes," he said. "Even with that, we've still got to get more out of our players… You've got to look at yourselves as a set up, I think. If your players are playing to their potential and they're getting beat, that's fine. But in this series so far, we haven't done that."
Meanwhile, England are yet to announce their playing eleven for the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Shoaib Bashir and Bethell are expected to make their first appearances in the series.
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