Former West Brom and Wolves man is shaping the immediate future of English cricket

Gould - who turned out for both Wolves and Albion during his playing days - spent 15 fruitless months at The Hawthorns during a managerial career that took in nine different clubs and the Welsh national team across four separate decades and saw him famously win the 1988 FA Cup with Wimbledon.

His son is Richard Gould, the chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), who today defended the decision to stick with Brendon McCullum and Rob Key in the wake of another Ashes thrashing - citing the hire and fire culture of his father's career.

“Cricket is a very unique sport in that it takes a team of leadership…it’s not like football where there’s a single point of failure or success with a manager,” he said. “We do keep a very close eye on all of our supporters, we have a variety of different means and it’s not just through the formal media that we do that, but neither are we going to select or deselect management based on a popularity campaign.

“My old man was a football manager: sacking was part of the job. It didn’t necessarily do the right thing. Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That’s not the route that we’re going to take."

Bobby Gould took over at The Hawthorns in February 1991 and, despite a nine-match unbeaten run, could not prevent Albion suffering relegation to the third tier for the first, and so far only, time in their history.

The Baggies board kept faith with Gould the following season - despite a clamour for his assistant Stuart Pearson to be given the job following a spell in charge as caretaker manager.

However, Albion failed to even made the play-offs - leading to infamous scenes on the final day of the 1991/92 season at Shrewsbury, which saw Baggies fans walk to Gay Meadow with a coffin bearing Gould's name and then storm the pitch at the final whistle to protest further, despite a 3-1 win for their side.

While England's travails on the cricket pitch have not quite plumbed those depths, there have been growing calls against McCullum and Key at the end of a tour Down Under that saw them surrender the Ashes meekly.

The ECB promised a “thorough review” in the wake of the resounding 4-1 defeat Down Under, a tour plagued by criticisms of sloppy preparation, excessive drinking and selection mistakes, but has concluded evolution under McCullum as head coach and Key as managing director is preferable to swinging the axe.

A 4-0 loss in Australia four years earlier saw both predecessors – Chris Silverwood and Ashley Giles – pay with their jobs and there has been a considerable appetite for similar action among sections of the support.

But ECB chief executive Richard Gould said: “I’ve seen the driving ambition and determination that we’re lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward. I think what we’ve seen is a determination from all those involved to adapt and evolve, to understand that there are different ways of doing things.

“We’ve got a lot of people hurt by what went on during the Ashes, but equally determined to now put things right and looking forward to seeking revenge in 2027.”