![\"Brendon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/b92d31f6f9fd8ff3f6dc471f672d26868e955703.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cThere\u2019s nothing bigger than what we\u2019re about to come into,\u201d he said. \u201cThis team has been together for a good couple of years and we have been building towards this moment. It is the biggest stage, it is the brightest lights and it is a series which could define teams and define people and players within it, and that\u2019s OK.<\/p>\n
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Brendon McCullum speaks to the BBC in Brisbane.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
“You’re going to feel nervous and anxious, but lean into it, you know you’re ready, you know you’ve got the game, and stay together, play the style you’ve become accustomed to and keep moving towards the target. We’ve got our team to the start line and I feel like our horse is going to run well.”<\/p>\n
Even the eminently sensible Joe Root had laid it all on the line when speaking to this masthead<\/a> a couple of weeks earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we come away from this and I haven\u2019t got a hundred, and we win the series, that would be probably the best achievement of my whole career,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where it sits with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n One of the curious subplots of England’s Ashes campaign has been the involvement of Gilbert Enoka<\/a>, the well-regarded psychologist and mentor to many New Zealand teams and athletes, McCullum among them.<\/p>\n He too was interviewed before the series, and came out with some of the (literally) loftiest rhetoric of all.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the Everest, the biggest,\u201d he said in The Guardian. \u201cTo come over to Australia, this beautiful country, and to play in their backyard in a series that has this iconic history to it, what a privilege that is. This is probably the greatest test a cricketer will have in their lifetime, and who wouldn\u2019t want that?\u201d<\/p>\n England then were in no doubt about the size of the task and about positioning themselves as worthy to take it on. But in preparation terms, they took on Everest without much in the way of serious altitude training. Sir Edmund Hillary certainly never prepped for the summit by going to Noosa<\/a>.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n As the series played out, all this big talk came to look both premature and unhelpful to the touring side. So much so that during the Adelaide Test, assistant coach Jeetan Patel ran as far from it as he could. \u201cI think the narrative of [the Ashes] being the series is everyone else\u2019s story,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n Funnily enough, that remark was closer to home, Australia\u2019s players tried to look at it. Mitchell Starc, the outstanding bowler in the series, explained that by building a team environment where staying level was valued, Australia had been able to keep playing well even when thrown numerous injury problems.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last number of years it\u2019s been a pretty level group, things have never got too high or too low,\u201d Starc said. \u201cIf we haven\u2019t had a good day it\u2019s pretty easy to move on from and learn from. Absolutely a feature of our group and to guys who\u2019ve come in less experienced or younger, the freedom to express themselves as players but also learn from it has been beneficial.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s playing the Gavaskar [series against India], playing the Ashes, playing West Indies, we\u2019ve tried to go about it the same way, prepare the same way. So never get too high or too low, it\u2019s just stay in your own lane and express yourselves as people and cricketers and enjoy our time together.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n