England's players and management face performance review after lopsided Ashes loss in Australia

SYDNEY (AP) — England's players and management are undergoing a performance review following the 4-1 Ashes series defeat in Australia, with England Wales Cricket Board chief executive Richard Gould vowing to “implement the necessary changes" over coming months.

Gould issued a statement after England's five-wicket loss in the fifth test Thursday, highlighting disappointment in the campaign after the squad traveled to Australia with high expectations of ending a long drought Down Under.

The planning, tactics and preparation of head coach Brendon McCullum and cricket director Rob Key will be part of the review, along with “individual performances and behaviors” and the team's ability to adapt and react to conditions.

“This Ashes tour began with significant hope and anticipation, and it is therefore deeply disappointing that we have been unable to fulfill our ambition," Gould said. “While there were moments of strong performance and resilience, including a hard-fought victory in the fourth test in Melbourne, we were not consistent enough across all conditions and phases of the contest.”

Gould said the cricket board was “determined to improve quickly” as the team prepares for the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup in India and Sri Lanka next month.

England captain Ben Stokes said the performances were “so far below the level that this team can operate at."

He suggested one reason might the ability of opposing teams to counteract England's attack-at-all costs ”Bazball" approach, which is a vast departure tactically from conventional test cricket.

“We are now playing against teams who have answers to the style of cricket that we have been playing over quite a long period of time,” Stokes said. "In the first couple of years (under McCullum), teams found it difficult to try and come up with anything to combat the way that we played.

“But there’s moments in games throughout the (Ashes) series, and even before that, where we’ve almost gifted the flow of the game back to the opposition.”

Stokes said England had to be prepared to rethink its approach, having lost 14 test of the 28 test matches it has played since the beginning of 2024.

“When a trend is happening on a consistent basis in the way that you don’t want it to happen, that’s when you do need to go back and go look at the drawing board and make some adjustments,” he said.

McCullum, the main architect of England's aggressive batting approach that the tourists started the tour with, said he'd be open to minor changes but not a complete overhaul.

“You’ve got to have conviction in your methods,” he told the BBC. "You’re not against evolution and progress, but you’ve got to have conviction in what you believe in.

“It’s about nipping and tucking to try and get a better version of your style and your beliefs.”

McCullum said he'd “see what happens” with the review “but I firmly believe in how we go about trying to build this team and progress on what we’ve done.”

One person in McCullum's corner will be his captain.

“If something ever comes to it, I’ll be asked for my opinion and he’ll be getting my full support,” Stokes said. "I absolutely love working with Baz, he’s a great man and he’s a very, very, very good coach.”

Australia retained the Ashes with wins in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, before England's drought-breaking win in the fourth test in Melbourne made it 3-1 ahead of the test at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Australia has won four consecutive home Ashes series since England's last win here in 2010-11.

England struggled this tour with injuries to key bowlers Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, a heavy workload for skipper Ben Stokes which meant he couldn't bowl on the last day of the series, and a consistently flawed approach to batting in pressure situations.

England's fielding was also problematic across the series, with a reported 17 catches put down at a cost of hundreds of runs.

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

England's Ben Stokes signs his autograph for a fan following the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Australia's Cameron Green, left, is congratulated by England's Jacob Bethell following the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

England's Ben Stokes, centre, gestures to teammate Brydon Carse, right, during play on the last day of the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that he will allow service members to carry personal weapons onto military installations, citing the Second Amendment and recent shootings at bases across the country.

In a video posted to X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo that will direct base commanders to allow requests for troops to carry privately owned firearms “with the presumption that it is necessary for personal protection.”

He said any denial of a service member's request must be explained in detail and in writing.

“Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,” Hegseth said. “Unless you're training or unless you are a military policeman, you couldn't carry, you couldn't bring your own firearm for your own personal protection onto post.”

Questions about why service members lacked access to weapons have often emerged following shootings on the nation's military bases. Such shootings have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas’ Ford Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead.

Hegseth cited some of the events in his video, including a shooting that injured five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia last year. Officials said the shooter, an Army sergeant who worked at the base, used his personal handgun before he was tackled by fellow soldiers and arrested.

“In these instances, minutes are a lifetime,” Hegseth said. “And our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.”

Defense Department policy has prohibited military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, with strict protocol for how the firearms must be stored.

Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges, then check all firearms back in promptly after their sanctioned use. Military police are often the only armed personnel on base, outside of shooting ranges, hunting areas or in training, where soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition.

Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement that Defense Department leaders and the military’s top brass have opposed relaxing the current policy, which was originally enacted under President George H.W. Bush.

Schardt noted that most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with a weapon they own personally, not one military-issued, and argued that there will “undoubtedly be an increase in gun suicide and other gun violence.”

While fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, the suicide rates among active duty troops overall still have gradually increased between 2011 and 2024, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday.

“Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they’ve never been ‘gun-free zones,’” Schardt said. “If there is a problem with violent crime on these installations, then the Secretary of Defense has an obligation to alert the American people and describe how he’s working to prevent that crime.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to members of the media during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)