{"id":723539,"date":"2026-06-08T18:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/723539\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:27:17","slug":"brave-when-we-needed-to-be-mccullum-hails-england-for-leaving-ashes-baggage-behind-england-v-new-zealand-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/723539\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Brave when we needed to be\u2019: McCullum hails England for leaving Ashes baggage behind | England v New Zealand 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brendon McCullum has praised his players\u2019 refusal to be haunted by their nightmare winter after England won their first Test since the Ashes, against New Zealand at Lord\u2019s on Sunday<\/a>. The head coach admitted that \u201cthe temperature has been a bit hot\u201d around his side since their failure in Australia, but he hailed their bravery and refusal to \u201ccarry any baggage\u201d.<\/p>\n

McCullum insisted his team had kept the Bazball spirit burning, despite the low scores and strike rates seen on an \u201cincredibly challenging\u201d surface. \u201cI\u2019ve been really impressed,\u201d McCullum said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys haven\u2019t carried any baggage. They\u2019ve come here and put their plans and preparation into work. They\u2019ve executed when the pressure was at its highest and ultimately have got success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was some progress there. There\u2019ll be other periods during the series when we\u2019re challenged in different ways. There might be occasions when the game is drifting and we\u2019ve got to create things a bit more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we were brave at times when we needed to be. Bravery for me is not necessarily about running down the wicket and trying to slog every ball. There are times when you will need to do that, but there are also times when subtly you can change things up a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the first innings, our boys shifted their guard on a number of occasions, they tried to bat out of their crease and deep in their crease, they talked about trying to rotate the strike, absorb pressure, and manipulate the situation. To me, that\u2019s brave. What\u2019s not brave is doing the same thing over and over again and just expecting the bowler is going to miss on a surface like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the subject of the pitch, which has been widely condemned and forced the MCC to issue an apologetic statement<\/a> at the end of the game, McCullum was measured. \u201cI guess you probably wouldn\u2019t want to play on that pitch every week, but from a fans\u2019 point of view I kind of didn\u2019t mind it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Both of McCullum\u2019s big selection calls for the first Test of a widely trailed post-Ashes reset came good, with the opener Emilio Gay\u2019s second-innings 57<\/a> the largest individual score of the match and Ollie Robinson<\/a>, on his return to the side after an absence of more than two years, taking seven wickets including three in a spectacular first over on Thursday. \u201cSport doesn\u2019t often serve up fairytales, but this was a small one for Robbo,\u201d McCullum said.<\/p>\n

Gay had presented a challenge for McCullum, with the coach having to rein in the 26-year-old\u2019s excitement before his Test debut. \u201cA week ago I felt like things were spinning a bit for Emilio,\u201d he said. \u201c[There] was a little bit of work to do just to calm him down. It\u2019s natural. He\u2019s an emotional guy and he wears his heart on his sleeve. It means a lot to him to represent England. That\u2019s natural and it\u2019s pretty hard to suppress those emotions and be able to handle the extra stuff you have to when you come to international cricket, and be able to do it straight away.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery few people can do that and there\u2019s a process you\u2019ve got to go through. That was our job and \u00adEmilio\u2019s job, to slowly settle himself to the point where he got to the start line feeling ready, confident and like he didn\u2019t have to be anyone else other than himself, and to trust the game that got him to this level. He did that and he would have grown immensely from his week\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brendon McCullum has praised his players\u2019 refusal to be haunted by their nightmare winter after England won their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-723539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723539","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=723539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}