Downfall of the Mott-Key crew: Everyone is responsible and no one is accountable

The dominant feeling around English cricket is powerlessness after the flaccid World Cup defence

- Barney Ronay 

Everyone is responsible; no one will be held accountable. Welcome to England cricket 3.0. White ball era: the after-party. Actually, this isn't the whole story. It turns out, with tour squads announced and executive briefing complete, that one person will be held accountable for England's mind-bogglingly flaccid 50-over World Cup defence.

That person is Dawid Malan, who was England's best batsman during their mind-bogglingly flaccid World Cup defence, who now has the best England one-day international batting average of all time. And who has now been dropped from the team in all formats. Everyone is responsible for this mess; Dawid Malan will be held accountable. And this is fine.

The next item on England's immediate post-World Cup review is incoherent messaging, a topic first raised by Eoin Morgan. We hear so much about it. But what does it actually sound like? At which point, rewind to Eden Gardens on Friday, close to 10.30pm, with the sense already of things sliding into other things.

Matthew Mott is standing at the bottom of a stairwell explaining for the first time why, under his watch, England's world champions have performed like a team drained of will, competitive verve and any plan. Here is summary of the things Matthew Mott said about this.

We did what we had to do.

I'm really impressed with the professionalism.

We had our backs right to the wall and we pulled out some good performances. In many ways we've turned a corner.

A week after defeats against Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, India, South Africa and Australia, all by startling margins, Mott talked with a visible sense of pride about "character", "fighting back" and (seriously) "true leadership".

He talked about tenacity and resilience. He said: "I couldn't be prouder." And this is fine. It's not Matthew Mott's fault he sounds deluded when these words are set on a page.