Let's start at the top, with the leaders. After the final test in Sydney, with the Aussies romping to a five-wicket victory, the feeling was that this could mark the end of the current hierarchy. It was ‘Chat shit, get banged—2026 Ashes edition’.

Key and Mcullen looked untenable. As did the top order. Mcullen was doing little firefighting during the series to dissuade anyone that he wasn’t taking it seriously or preparing properly. After the dust settled, the ECB decided it was time to double down. More Baz, more Key, more flat decks, more reverse scoops, more funny hats, pints, being 200 for 8. Play me the hits! But, they promised that this time, they’d watch some county cricket. Seemed like a smart idea to utilise our domestic competition. Maybe these guys aren't so bad. Oh wait. 

Brendon McCullum won’t be back until 24 May. That’s despite being England head coach, despite the eye-watering central contract, and despite the slapping we received in Australia. There’s been no 6 am raw-egg restart, no Rocky-style redemption montage. In fact, from the outside, it feels like nothing’s changed at all. It almost feels like we’re gonna do it all again. Oh, apart from the introduction of a selector in Marcus North. 

The County Championship has cracked on without him. By the time McCullum returns, he’ll have missed the opening 54 matches, close to half of the first-class season. While there's a possibility the big man’s been glued to the county streams, it's unlikely. He strikes me as someone who would rather do pretty much anything else. It’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from our supreme leader. County Cricket? County Shmounty. Wake me up when the real stuff starts, Baz. 

England’s batting has spent the last year in a state of permanent paranoia. Like a political leader governing through a violent insurgency, every innings has felt like climbing into a car, wondering whether this is the moment the whole thing explodes and they’re suddenly 110 for 8 before lunch.

The problem is players like Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley have spent most of their England careers being told there’s only one way to play. To borrow the old chant from Manchester United under Alex Ferguson: attack, attack, attack. Sounds like a reductive analogy, but it rings true. But without the ceremonial sacrifice of senior officials after the Ashes disaster, it now feels like England’s top-order officers are the ones being marched to the altar.

Crawley, England’s third-highest run scorer in Australia, loses his place, and so does Surrey’s Pope. By the end, both looked like men batting with scrambled eggs for brains, permanently caught between survival and self-destruction. Neither has piled up serious runs in the early rounds of the County Championship, and so the reset begins.

The clamour for James Rew over the last year has reached near pop-star levels. Now the moment has arrived for Somerset’s young wicketkeeper-batter, with social media already flooded by reels of that filthy cover drive. Alongside him comes Emilio Gay, the Durham opener drafted in for his first Test squad as England reshuffle the top order.

The bigger question is how these players will actually be asked to bat. Crawley wasn’t really an opener in the traditional sense by the end. The sense that style had been preferred to substance. He’d become this all-or-nothing, chest-out enforcer, forever driving on the up like a toddler unable to keep his hands off the marshmallows. So does Gay inherit that same role alongside Ben Duckett?

The headline is that Ollie Robinson is back. After spending the last year wandering in the wilderness like cricket’s version of Moses, the Sussex skipper appears to have finally patched things up with the England setup and earned himself a recall.

Because the strange thing with Robinson was that the actual bowling was never really the issue. The skill was obvious. The numbers were good. He could still make good players look deeply uncomfortable on helpful pitches. Instead, the concerns seemed to orbit around fitness, attitude and whatever exactly was going on behind the scenes — something that still feels slightly vague and shrouded in mystery.

At the time in India, he was podcasting with his fiancée, looked visibly unfit, and the general feeling around the side was that he wasn’t taking the whole thing seriously enough. The narrative quickly became that Robinson was a bad bloke, bad pro, bad fit for the culture. But it still feels like there’s probably more to it than that.

Alongside Robinson, Sonny Baker and Rehan Ahmed have also been brought back into the fold, while Shoaib Bashir somehow survives another cull despite what must have been a psychologically scarring Ashes tour. Just how good are these drinks he carries onto the field? 

It all feels a bit like England is trying to perform a soft reboot without admitting the original plan failed. The ideology hasn’t changed. The language hasn’t changed. Bazball still sits at the centre of it all like some unmovable state religion. New Zealand will be a tough test this summer; with careers hanging in the balance.