{"id":796089,"date":"2026-07-12T19:49:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T19:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796089\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T19:49:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T19:49:31","slug":"how-brendon-mccullum-lost-england-cricket-test-head-coach-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/796089\/","title":{"rendered":"How Brendon McCullum lost England cricket Test head coach role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bucket hats, nighthawks and all the golf. Some of England’s most incredible wins, achieved in breathtaking style. New Zealand<\/a> at Trent Bridge, India<\/a> at Edgbaston, Pakistan<\/a> in Rawalpindi.<\/p>\n

For a while, England were more than a cricket team. They were a feeling, a movement and a phenomenon. They flickered occasionally over McCullum’s next three years in charge, but nothing like that heady first year.<\/p>\n

As to why the ride careered off the rails, McCullum gave us a clue on his very first day in the job.<\/p>\n

“I don’t coach technically,” said McCullum at Lord’s in May 2022. “I understand the techniques, but for me it’s more around man-management and trying to provide the right environment for the team to go out and be the best versions of themselves.”<\/p>\n

McCullum inherited an experienced group, players who had been flattened by a run of one win in 17 and stifled by Covid restrictions: Stokes, Anderson, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood.<\/p>\n

The New Zealander liberated them, providing a freedom they knew how to use.<\/p>\n

When the time came to build a new England team \u2013 given the age profile, this was always likely on McCullum’s watch \u2013 his style was not suited to moulding a new generation.<\/p>\n

Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir \u2013 even Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope. Their Test careers under McCullum started strongly. When they needed more, he could not provide it.<\/p>\n

McCullum admitted to over-estimating the younger players’ preparedness for the hostility faced on and off the field during an Ashes tour. The outcome was a 4-1 loss<\/a> so damaging that England cannot rid themselves of the stench.<\/p>\n

At the end of that series, McCullum spoke in Sydney like a man who knew his time was up.<\/p>\n

“I’m open to evolution and some nipping and tucking, but without being ultimately able to steer the ship maybe there is someone better,” he said.<\/p>\n

He survived, along with Stokes and Key, albeit now with Bazball-lite: a curfew, restrictions on booze, a team chef and a beefed-up backroom staff. For a man who made no apologies for an “informal” environment, it did not feel very McCullum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bucket hats, nighthawks and all the golf. Some of England’s most incredible wins, achieved in breathtaking style. New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-796089","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\/796089","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=796089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}