{"id":798921,"date":"2026-07-14T03:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798921\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T03:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T03:48:15","slug":"former-england-test-coach-brendon-mccullum-apologises-for-poor-results-and-reflects-on-bazball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798921\/","title":{"rendered":"Former England Test coach Brendon McCullum apologises for poor results and reflects on \u2018Bazball\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

July 14, 2026 \u2014 11:12am<\/p>\n

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Brendon McCullum has apologised for failing to achieve Test series victories over Australia and India, leaving him open to being sacked as England coach by the ECB and bringing an end to Bazball.<\/p>\n

England have already started the search for McCullum\u2019s replacement as Test coach, with Andy Flower, Stephen Fleming and Rahul Dravid all considered possible candidates. Ryan Campbell, an Australian who is currently head coach at Durham, is also in the mix. Flower previously coached England between 2009 and 2014.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer England Test coach Brendon McCullum.Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still employed to mentor the white-ball teams, McCullum spoke openly about the end of his time in charge of the Test side in Birmingham overnight, and accepted responsibility for the way the team crashed and burned under pressure.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI got a tap on the shoulder,\u201d McCullum said, confirming he had been sacked. \u201cI was disappointed, not just initially, but at the same time I fully respect the decision. We\u2019re in a results business and fundamentally our results weren\u2019t good enough. It\u2019s time for someone else to have a go.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia and Australia are the marquee series and if you don\u2019t win those you haven\u2019t quite been able to achieve what you wanted to. I thought we had opportunities against both of those quality oppositions and we achieved some good stuff over the four years but, fundamentally, the results didn\u2019t live up to it at the back end; hence the decision was made.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just weren\u2019t able to get the results and for that, I guess I can only say sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"McCullum<\/a><\/p>\n

McCullum reiterated that he never appreciated the term \u201cBazball\u201d, and explained the circumstances in which he and former skipper Ben Stokes had felt the radical approach could work.<\/p>\n

Tellingly, a major part of the tack the team\u2019s leaders took was to make international cricket an attractive environment for players who were considering a move to the T20 franchise circuit. In that context, there will be challenges for McCullum\u2019s replacement in a far stricter ECB regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about trying to get the best out of these guys,\u201d McCullum said. \u201cTrying to initially bring some joy and some enthusiasm back into it. Understanding that these guys have options outside of playing for their country. They have options which have a lot less scrutiny, a lot more money and a lot less demands on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we wanted to create an environment off the back of COVID and some poor performances beforehand where guys were excited to jump in the car to Lord\u2019s to meet up with the English cricket team, and were excited about taking on opposition teams and dealing with the scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo ultimately want to choose playing for England over the other option which comes with a lot less scrutiny around it. That was initially what we were trying to create. And then, as we went along, it was about trying to have an identity about how you wanted to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe architects of \u2018Bazball\u2019: England captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum after an early victory.Getty<\/p>\n

England won some dramatic victories at home to New Zealand and South Africa in 2022, before also pulling off a couple of similarly spectacular wins in Pakistan. They drew with Australia 2-2 in 2023, failing to regain the Ashes, then lost away to India before drawing at home with them.<\/p>\n

A 4-1 defeat in Australia last summer was effectively the end of the Bazball project, although McCullum tried to hang on until a curfew scandal and a home series loss to New Zealand settled his fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think during that time, we just were not quite able to succinctly nail everything we wanted,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd hence when those pressure moments arrived in the biggest series, when pressure was at its highest, we unfortunately weren\u2019t able to achieve it. For that, I put my hands up.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was the leader of that group. I was in charge of the team culturally, in charge of the team tactically, in charge of the team results-wise as well. If you don\u2019t get the results, being a results business, fundamentally you get replaced.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCullum now finds himself in the same position as Matthew Mott, who took on the white-ball job opposite the Test side in 2022 and then was sacked two years later because McCullum wanted to run all formats. Flower has stated that his previous attempt to split the roles with Ashley Giles was a failure, so McCullum\u2019s future is murky.<\/p>\n

\u201cMotty is a good mate of mine and he was probably a bit unlucky,\u201d McCullum said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t get the contact time, but he maybe didn\u2019t have the relationship when he first came in. I\u2019m in a fortunate position where those relationships have been built over a period and maybe bit of reduced contact time won\u2019t be such a big problem. There\u2019s lots to unpack.\u201d<\/p>\n

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"DanielDaniel Brettig<\/a> is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 14, 2026 \u2014 11:12am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-798921","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\/798921","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=798921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}