{"id":11822,"date":"2025-07-21T21:58:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T21:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/11822\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T21:58:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T21:58:14","slug":"all-blacks-mental-skills-coach-joins-england-cricket-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/11822\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks mental skills coach joins England cricket staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

England lead the series with India 2-1, and have confirmed their XI for the fourth test, with Liam Dawson \u2013 who was described by Harry Brook as a \u201cwily old fox\u201d \u2013 returning for his first test in eight years in place of the injured Shoaib Bashir.<\/p>\n

Chris Woakes was retained ahead of Gus Atkinson, who was deemed to not have enough overs under his belt after a hamstring injury. Atkinson has only played club cricket since suffering the injury two months ago, and Woakes\u2019s fine record (averaging 37 with the bat and 17 with the ball) won him a spot at Old Trafford, where the outfield is expected to be heavy.<\/p>\n

Despite early hopes that he could play, Mark Wood will not be fit for next week\u2019s fifth test, meaning England are desperate to have Atkinson back at the Oval. But with Surrey also not prepared to take a risk on Atkinson\u2019s fitness for their crunch championship match at Scarborough, England\u2019s 2024 player of the year will look to prove his fitness in a county second-team game against Somerset, starting on Tuesday. Josh Tongue, meanwhile, will play the final two days of Nottinghamshire\u2019s championship match against Hampshire.<\/p>\n

India will need to make at least one change of their own, with Nitish Kumar Reddy ruled out of the tour with a knee injury. With Akash Deep struggling with a groin issue, a debut for seamer Anshul Kamboj seems likely.<\/p>\n

AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n

Whoever takes the field, further spice is likely after a fractious Lord\u2019s test. Harry Brook, the England batsman, said a row between Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and India\u2019s fielders on the third evening at Lord\u2019s had inspired the hosts to \u201cgo hard\u201d at India.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good fun,\u201d he said. \u201cWe watched the Indians go hard at Creeps [Crawley] and Ducky [Duckett]. We had a conversation, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to not be the nice guys that we have been in the past three years, to go out there and put them under more pressure than what they have probably had before.<\/p>\n

\"EnglandEngland coach Brendon McCullum has called in a fellow Kiwi. Photo \/ photosport<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watched two of our guys out there on their own, going back at the Indians after they were going at them. We just thought \u2018we\u2019re not standing for that\u2019 as a group of 11 players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t being personal, we weren\u2019t being nasty, we were just putting them under more pressure. I brought it up the night before the last day. Baz [McCullum] said the other day \u2018we\u2019re too nice, I think tomorrow is a perfect opportunity to really get stuck into them\u2019. We were doing it within the spirit of the game. We weren\u2019t going out there effing and jeffing at them, and being nasty people. We were just going about it in the right manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brook said it makes a \u201cbig difference\u201d having Jofra Archer in England\u2019s attack. Archer returned after four years out of Test cricket with five wickets at Lord\u2019s, and Brook said being asked to take a long sleeve off had inspired the paceman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he always bowls a little bit quicker when he is angry,\u201d smiled Brook. \u201cOne of the players told him to take his arm sleeve off at some point. The next ball was like 94mph \u2026 We have probably got a bit of a job this week to try and get him angry at some point and try and blow them away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England lead the series with India 2-1, and have confirmed their XI for the fourth test, with Liam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[1914,3265,13652,64,63,9658,13644,3181,13646,740,13648,1906,1208,13647,13650,13651,1209,13643,13649,13645,13641,10839,9672,13642,85,11457,231,13653,8289],"class_list":["post-11822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-against","tag-all","tag-amid","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blacks","tag-brendon","tag-coach","tag-created","tag-cricket","tag-dickheads","tag-edge","tag-england","tag-famous","tag-give","tag-harder","tag-india","tag-joins","tag-looks","tag-mccullum","tag-mental","tag-policy","tag-series","tag-skills","tag-sports","tag-staff","tag-test","tag-tetchy","tag-turned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}