Listen to our new Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club podcast in full

"Don't you need a briefcase when you're the Managing Director?" Phil Tufnell teases as a relaxed Rob Key sits down to begin his interview to mark the launch of the Telegraph's new Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club podcast.

It soon becomes clear that Key is not your usual corporate type as, over the course of the next hour, he lays out his vision for the future of the game. His first month in the job has been busy - and it's clear big changes are afoot.

"First I had to find a new captain," he says. "Then try to find a coach - in fact we decided we needed two. Then it's been interviewing people all the time, to find the best."

Key discusses everything from his first crucial appointments to what needs to change in the culture of English cricket; why there is a lack of English coaches at the top level to how Jos Buttler could yet star for the Test side.

Here are just a few of the best exchanges. For the full, unmissable interview, go to telegraph.co.uk/sport or download the podcast.

Michael Vaughan [Host]  In the last six years we've had one player that's debuted and averaged over 30 - Rory Burns. Why?

Rob Key  That, I think, goes back to the whole system at the moment not producing the players. I think we've got the talent. We've got to somehow make sure they can deliver at that level, which we haven't done - as the batting suggests. And then we end up in a huge debate if you want to go down this road about county cricket pitches. My biggest bug - you can change the schedule, you can change the structure of county cricket, all those things. But if you keep playing on the pitches they have been using for however many years where the medium pacers ... They were the bane of my life, these guys who would just turn up at 70mph, dob it around and hit me in the shin.

Vaughan  Are you bagging Darren Stevens?

Key  If you don't replicate the conditions you get in Test cricket, you end up with no spinners, no fast bowlers. You look now, we've got a load of injuries, which could be for a lot of different reasons, but part of it will probably be because they're now starting to play four-day cricket, not something that's over in two and a bit days. That's so crucial to English cricket that people learn to play four-day cricket

Vaughan  We have to nullify the 75mph seamer. Those overs need to be bowled by either bowlers 82mph or over or spinners.

I'm interested in the High Performance Group that has been created. You’ve got David Brailsford, who has been incredible with cycling, Dan Ashworth who has done incredibly in football and others like yourself and Marcus North on that panel. What is that going to look like? And what does it look like to you going forward?

Key  We've had a couple of meetings and I'm not sure. The meetings so far have been very interesting, but it's been setting up the debate. Because you've got loads of people from lots of other sports they want to get in and find out how they see high performance.

And actually it's been just listening and then trying to work out and find out - you think how complicated our system is, whether it's county cricket, England cricket, how it all works. You've got the votes that you need in county cricket - all these things. So a lot of it so far has been setting up with these guys to sort of explain how it works and where we're at. So they can then try and formulate and try and work it in.

There's no point spending however long coming up with ideas that just aren't going to be good.

Vaughan  In four years' time, what will the game look like domestically?

Key  At this point I have no idea of what it's going to be and how it's going to go because it might be less four-day cricket, which I think might be the bet that you could go on. But I don't know that, we haven't got to that point. I did a thing for Sky when I said how I would have tried to sort out the schedule of county cricket, which is what we're talking about a little bit, but I don't know what they're going to come [up with]. I have no idea how David Brailsford, people like that, Dan Ashworth, are going to see county cricket and what they're going to think needs to happen - and the same with the England cricket team. I couldn't tell you now where it's going to get to.

Things like the Hundred I think are important. I know it's a really contentious issue. But this sort of rhetoric we have in the country at the moment about for one thing to succeed, the other one's got to fail, I personally don't agree with that. I think we can have it all in English cricket. We just have to be smart about how we do it. What it looks like physically, I couldn't tell you.

It's not my remit actually to sort county cricket and to say this is what we're going to do. The ECB and the counties are the ones really deciding on their own future at times. So how it all looks, how I would do it, as I said on the Sky podcast, I would have 10 games of Championship cricket.

I think you've basically added in a month of the season with a competition [The Hundred]. So you've added in a month's worth of cricket, so you've got to lose a month's worth of cricket. So [now] you have what, 14 games? You go down to 10 games and you end up with 10 high quality games. How that looks? I have my thing where you have your 12 best teams and one [division] below it and all that type of stuff, but whether that's how it's going to go, I couldn't tell you. I don't think that would be a bad plan - three divisions, whatever.

'I have no issue with keeping 18 counties'

Vaughan  You’d keep the 18 counties?

Key  I don't see how you get to a point where you don't. So I have no issue [with that]. With 18 counties we have produced some good cricketers.

Vaughan  England have been the No1 Test men's team for 12 months in the last 40 years. In that time, Australia has been No1 for 170 months. That is a huge gulf. this system clearly isn't producing? If you stay at five days for Test match cricket, why not play it in our domestic games as well?

Key  I don't see that as a radical change to be honest.

What you did b----- well, actually, was the mentality of English cricket changed. And that was so important. You tell me another side whose mentality when they lost that first Test match at Lords in 2005 who would have turned around at Edgbaston and got 400 in a day and flipped it?

You think about how you lot all saw cricket in that era. We all had this influx of that Australian mentality come through from those great players - the likes of Darren Lehmann, Shane Warne, whoever - and there was a change.

Vaughan  I actually think in the last few years they've been too aggressive. They've not played the Test match way for long enough. I always think in Test cricket you earn the right to be aggressive, but you have to have that foundation first. I don't think this Test match team and this group has been good enough - mentally strong enough - to create that foundation to be aggressive [from].

Phil Tufnell [Host]  You just feel with that English team, as soon as they’re under pressure that batting line-up goes to pieces.

'England have been indecisive'

Key  It's not about going out there playing shots. It's actually about the mentality that you have. If you look at it, if they are out playing a shot outside off stump, that comes from indecisiveness. Not knowing when to leave the ball comes from being indecisive, from being negative. It's not about the way that you go out there and the one way of playing.

When you speak to Brendon McCullum, he's very clear about what Test cricket is for him. It's about being able to soak up pressure as a batsman, it's about being able to transfer pressure at the right time as a batsman by making good decisions all the time throughout, and having the courage and the conviction to make those decisions throughout. So there are times when you've got to soak it up. You have to be positive in your thinking to do that. You just leave the ball better, I think, when you're positive. You come out thinking: 'Oh, no, I don't want to play a shot here.' That's when indecision comes. And England have been indecisive.

Our way now under McCullum is not just to run down and smack it - that's not what it is at all. And then he's very clear as well on bowlers. Bowlers [should] just look to take wickets. [Not] 'we're going to try and control this rate, control the scoreboard.' No. [Their] job is to take wickets and then it's very simple again. So with the ball, we look to take wickets and we are able to adapt the plan according to whatever that is.

Ben Wright [Host] What appealed about McCullum?

Key  I rang him and just said: 'Do you fancy having a go at this?'

At the start we just asked people if they’d be interested - we weren’t going to limit people or put people into a bracket and say, right, he's only red ball. He's only white ball.

And then it became clear with McCullum, in particular, that the red ball was the one that he was most interested in. And then when you sit and chat with him, you realise he's a bright bloke. And what I love about him is he's so authentic to who he is. He's bright. He's not going to be putting on a voice or anything like that. He's just who he is. And he's got conviction in how he sees the game.

Everyone thinks, 'Oh, you need experience.' I reckon that kills some people. Because when you ring up everyone who's worked with them and they go, 'They're all right, they're not bad.' So then you know who's all right, who's not bad. But someone with a bit less experience, they might be great, they might be good, they might be all right, they might be terrible. But give me that bet. I'd just much rather have someone who might be the next great coach than someone who's all right.

Wright  He said he wanted the England job because he thinks he can move the dial in Test cricket - that must have been appealing?

Key  He cares that much about Test cricket. He sees that if he can help English Test cricket get to a point where it's such a positive thing, he thinks it will help world Test cricket. So most of the great people in this world have more than just wanting to win a few games and wanting to make some money, there's a cause for them.

Tufnell  What was wrong with the culture and what will Brendon do?

Key  I just think he's got that positivity, not positivity in playing shots but just someone that will give them confidence and backing to go out there and make good decisions throughout really. You want these young batsmen in particular, to just lose the shackles and go and play without any baggage really.

There's been a bit of baggage there and you need someone to come and just take that off.

Vaughan  What’s your message to English coaches? What did Matthew Mott have that Collingwood didn’t?

Key  Colly was very close in that decision. Colly probably would have been, I think, very good at that white-ball side. Mott is someone who has basically done what I've just said, he has coached in so many different fields, that he has got an experience and he is so much further along in his coaching journey than other people because of what he's had to do.

In English cricket, we've got 18 counties - a lot of opportunity in coaching so people stay in our system so much longer.

Vaughan  Matt Parkinson hasn’t been selected - why?

Key Jack Leach was just ahead of him and that's the only reason at the moment. And what I've also said this week with Brendon and Ben is we don't have to get every decision in the first week. We will see. It's that balance between loyalty and making sure that everyone else around that team sees that you have a bit of faith in the people that are around.

Vaughan  Jos Buttler in Test cricket - where do you stand?

Key  I see no reason why Jos Buttler needs to retire from playing Test cricket now. Unless he turns around and says 'I just want to go down that white-ball path' then that's a different conversation,

He's had a pretty big IPL. I think he'll come back and then he will start thinking about things. But even if in a year's time, whenever it is, I don't see why he has to retire unless he turns around and says, 'I have no interest in the red-ball game whatsoever, it's not for me.'

I always thought that he could be an outstanding Test match batsman-wicket-keeper. I still think that - and I see no reason why he still couldn't do that and why he has to make any sort of decision either way or why we have to.

My bet is that McCullum and Stokes can get the best out of all of these people.