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Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n The New Zealander won 10 of his first 12 Tests in charge, including a remarkable 3-0 series sweep on the flat tracks of Pakistan in 2022, and came agonisingly close to bringing down World Test Champions Australia in a pulsating 2023 Ashes.<\/p>\n But a disastrous last 18 months in which England failed to win a Test series save for a one-off win over Zimbabwe, embarked on a miserable tour of Australia in which the team\u2019s lack of preparation and drinking culture were intensely scrutinised, and lost a home series to New Zealand amid yet more controversy that saw captain Ben Stokes throw in the towel, sealed McCullum\u2019s fate \u2013 and that of the game style that bears his name.<\/p>\n As the England and Wales Cricket Board scramble to pick up the pieces and appoint a new Test coach, 12 months out from the next Ashes series, the verdict from the UK press has been scathing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis regime will ultimately be judged as a failure,\u201d was the view of ESPNcricinfo<\/a> cricket correspondent Andrew Miller, who coined the term \u2018Bazball\u2019 in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cEngland came into it with high hopes of trying to use the momentum and the excitement of having such a core of great players in their midst going out there and playing as if they were little kids again. Just forgetting about context, go out there, see ball, hit ball. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was wonderful \u2014 while it worked.<\/p>\n Brendon McCullum will remain England\u2019s ODI and T20I coach despite being axed from the Test set-up. (Photo by Ashley Allen\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, England didn\u2019t win enough. They didn\u2019t win the Ashes at home in 2023. They didn\u2019t beat India away in 2024, and they did not beat Australia in the Ashes down under, a series that, frankly, England thought they went into with huge high hopes. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was unquestionably their best opportunity to win in Australia since that famous victory in 2010\/11, but it went wrong for all the sorts of reasons that hindsight will make it look as though it was bound to go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Writing for The Times<\/a>, English cricket great Michael Atherton said \u2018something had to give\u2019 following the Test team\u2019s poor recent results and a controversial nightclub incident that saw captain Stokes suspended for the second Test against New Zealand and sparked the all-rounder\u2019s international retirement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe results and chaos around the Test team demanded change and it is Brendon McCullum who has paid the penalty,\u201d Atherton wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cMcCullum had a hugely positive impact in his first two years, following his appointment in early 2022, helping to breathe new life, direction and energy into a broken team.\u201d<\/p>\n Atherton heaped criticism on England director of cricket Rob Key, who has been backed in by the ECB despite the changes happening under his watch, blaming the 47-year old for failing to make a tough but necessary call on either McCullum or Stokes following the team\u2019s 4-1 Ashes defeat.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it say, for example, about the judgment of Richard Gould and Richard Thompson, who doubled down on Key, McCullum and Stokes at the end of the Ashes, but have lost two of these key men within six months?\u201d Atherton wondered. <\/p>\n \u201cA more judicious call at the end of the Ashes might have been cleaner and less disruptive than what has transpired and would have prevented the past six months of waste.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellow former England captain Nasser Hussain, meanwhile, was equally scathing of Key\u2019s role in the team\u2019s breakdown behind the scenes, and in particular the recent imposition of a team curfew and banning drinking in the lead-in to matches.<\/p>\n \u201cRecently everything that I\u2019ve said about McCullum can be thrown at Key\u2019s door: a lacking of attention to detail, even the curfew,\u201d Hussain told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last few days, having to clarify exactly what the curfew means \u2014 it tells you where your side are if you\u2019re having to have a curfew.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re having to treat grown-up professional sportsmen with curfews, you\u2019re not in the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n McCullum\u2019s sacking comes just months after his job managing all three England teams was spared following a post-Ashes review, with a strong performance in reaching the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup in March enough to stay the board\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n But in the wake of his removal from the Test team, the delay has been panned in the UK press \u2014 with claims that Stokes was needlessly lost to the England side as a result.<\/p>\n \u201cIn truth, McCullum should have gone after the 2025-26 Ashes, when cracks first started to appear in his relationship with Stokes, and there seemed little sense that he knew how to take the team forward,\u201d wrote Lawrence Booth in the Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the ECB statement announcing the news, Key said McCullum \u2018leaves the Test team well set and poised to achieve great things\u2019. Alas, the opposite is true, with the Test side now rivalling the one-day team \u2013 eighth in the rankings, only seven years after they won the World Cup \u2013 for ineptitude.\u201d<\/p>\n Get all the latest cricket news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
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