"We'll tell you about everything that happened in Scotland.."

It was the lunch break on Day 2 of the third Test at Leeds in 2023. England had slumped to 142/7, still trailing Australia's first innings total by 121 runs. The series scoreline read 2-0 in favour of the visitors. And the Ashes were slipping away from Ben Stokes's then freewheeling marauders, quite rapidly too.

This was peak Bazball, and within a year of Brendon McCullum having asked his players to run towards the danger among other hair-raising punchlines. But sitting in the packed dining area of the Headingley media centre, there was a feeling that Bazball's days might already be numbered. For the knives were being sharpened. As tales of an allegedly loose pre-Ashes team trip to Scotland seemed ready to be unleashed.

Only for Mark Wood to hook a couple of sixes, for Stokes to launch a few more off Todd Murphy, and for England to claw their way back into the contest.

And there went the knives back into their sheaths. By the time, Harry Brook and Chris Woakes pulled off the dramatic run-chase a couple of days later, Bazball was back, as was the unbridled excitement around it.

You do wonder about what might have been if that Leeds Test had gone the other way, and Australia had taken a 3-0 lead. Even if the early matches in that Ashes series were a lot closer than what we've seen this time around. Even if it was at a time when England were winning more often than losing.

It is a very different scenario to where we stand now. And why the stinging news story in The Telegraph about Harry Brook's altercation with a bouncer in a nightclub in New Zealand hours before an ODI where he was England captain comes at the worst time for this England Test team and more so the ones in charge of it off the field, from coach McCullum to Robert Key, managing director of the England men's team.

It came just hours after the conclusion of one of the most underwhelming Ashes tours by an English team in recent memory. This Ashes campaign will remain mired as much now with off-field controversies as the team's inability to adapt to Australian conditions or giving themselves the best chance to do so. That despite them having won a Test match on Australian soil for the first time in 15 years.

All that hype. All that planning. All that bold talk. Blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but four more years to think about it. Somebody always takes the fall for a failed Ashes campaign on Australian soil. Happens every time. The only question is who is it going to be this time?

It won't be Stokes, and nor should it be. This wasn't the kind of Ashes the England captain would have liked with bat in hand. But he was probably the most consistent English bowler on view till, like Jasprit Bumrah last summer, his body gave up in the final bowling innings of the five-match series. But like he does so often, Stokes battled away, tirelessly delivering his trademark human endurance testing spells. He also roughed it out with the bat, mainly in a couple of innings, and especially during the show of resistance at the Gabba in the second innings.

And considering his incumbent vice captain just got reprimanded for a late-night indiscretion on the eve of an international match, there's no doubt that Brook is nowhere close to taking over. More reason why Stokes is the best man, and the only man, to turn things around for England as they face another bend in the road that's turning downhill. He's been very reflective throughout this series as he's spoken to the media, and even admitting that his team's much-publicised approach to playing Test cricket no longer has the same impact on opposition teams.

The next leadership figure under fire then would be McCullum, who has been steadfast about his approach as coach, and insists on doing it his way. And that he won't be "told what to do" by anyone, including the ECB. This was from an interview to the BBC before the Brook-bouncer fracas story became public. With the bigwigs of English cricket in Australia as part of their review into the team's failure, you'd expect the embarrassment from the off-field culture issues to have a bearing on how they view McCullum's tenure so far, and how long he could continue.

Key, the managing director, might be in the most awkward of positions in this, having revealed two weeks ago that Brook and Jacob Bethell had been warned by the team management during the same New Zealand trip, only weeks before the Ashes, for being filmed drinking in public on the same night that we now know the Yorkshire right-hander got into trouble at the nightclub. Brook might have copped a hefty fine for his actions, but you wonder if Key's position doesn't come under heavier scrutiny than any of his fellow top brass crew.

What could keep them all in place, is the fact that the next Ashes series, the one in England, is only 18 months away. England will have one home summer before then and Tests in South Africa towards the end of the year. But their main focus, as it tends to be, will be on somehow making up for this forgettable tour of Australia by regaining the Ashes on home soil for the first time in a dozen years.

There's nothing to suggest that the McCullum-Stokes tag team have the track record against the top-ranked teams to be England's best option. England's numbers against India and Australia in the last three years now stand at 6 wins, 12 defeats and 2 draws. And world champions South Africa will test them on home soil during their 2026-27 home summer.

But you wonder if there's enough time for a new head coach to come in and firstly undo some of the cultural aspects of the McCullum era before embarking in a new direction and do so by the time Australia land on their shores in June 2027. That too with many of the senior players very keen to stick around to try and tick that one final box of winning an Ashes series outright on English soil.

It's also the summer when McCullum's contract comes to an end anyway, and it'll be interesting to see if the decision makers in English cricket let it run its natural course, rather than taking any bold moves at this stage. It still can't simply remain status quo, and the fact remains that something will have to give. For, the knives have been unsheathed again, and they look sharp. The question is, who will they land on first.