Ashley Giles expresses regret over England's Ashes rout

Ashley Giles apologized for England's awful performance in the ongoing Ashes ahead of the fourth Test match of the series. Emphasizing on England's poor show with the red-ball, the managing director of England men's cricket called for a systemic change but warned against the mass sackings.

Giving details of what will follow after the series defeat, Giles mentioned that they will review the tour and send a report to the board as he spoke to the reporters in Sydney ahead of the dead rubber.

"Being here now in this position, I absolutely feel the responsibility of losing this Ashes series. Absolutely, we all do, and we can only apologise," Giles was quoted as saying to the reporters.

"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. We can't kid ourselves. Look, in 34 years we've come here and won once. We'll review the tour and there will be a full review, everything will be on the table. We'll have to send a report through Tom [Harrison, ECB chief executive] to the board.

As the uncertainty looms large over the careers of a few players and administrators, Giles opined that mass sackings are not the way to take the team forward. Instead, he stressed on bringing a systemic change within English cricket.

"In terms of my position, that's not for me to decide But you can clearly tell by the way I'm talking that I'm thinking very much about the future and how we take this team forward," Giles added.

"If it was a failing of this leadership, then fine, I'd take that, I'm at peace with accountability. But I'm not the first and I won't be the last unless we make some change... Unless we look at more systemic change and a collective responsibility and collective solutions, we can make whatever changes we want. You can change me, change the head coach, change the captain, but we're only setting up future leaders for failure. That's all we're doing. We're only pushing it down the road.

Reflecting on his career as the administrator, Giles mentioned how the last few years have been tough for him. Further in the interaction, he also faulted the domestic structure of English cricket, saying the circuit is not producing enough quality players.

"The last two years have probably been the most challenging of my career. Performance has almost been the last thing we've had to think about. And that's a really sad situation. But have we got the game on? Have we tried to keep the players fit and well? Yes, we've tried. And the wellbeing issue is a massive one.

"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," Giles stated.