{"id":273408,"date":"2025-11-20T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/273408\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:09:09","slug":"the-ashes-brendon-mccullum-says-england-are-ready-for-defining-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/273408\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes: Brendon McCullum says England are ready for defining series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coach Brendon McCullum believes his England team are ready for an Ashes<\/a> series that could “define” them.<\/p>\n

England chose not to confirm their XI for the first Test in Perth, instead waiting for the toss on Friday, with the match starting at 02:20 GMT.<\/p>\n

It means off-spinner Shoaib Bashir remains in contention to play. If Bashir is omitted, the tourists will field a five-man pace attack, probably the fastest group of bowlers they have ever put together for a Test match.<\/p>\n

McCullum and captain Ben Stokes have revitalised the England Test team since taking charge in 2022.<\/p>\n

In his only interview since arriving in Australia, McCullum told BBC Sport: “There’s nothing bigger than what we’re about to come into.”<\/p>\n

Speaking to Test Match Special commentator and former England spinner Phil Tufnell, McCullum added: “This team has been together for a good couple of years and we have been building towards this moment.<\/p>\n

“It is the biggest stage and it is the brightest lights. It is a series that could define teams, the people and players within it. That’s OK.<\/p>\n

“You know you’re ready, you know you have the game to compete at this level. Stay together, play the style you have become accustomed to and we’ll see in a couple of months where we land.”<\/p>\n

The former New Zealand captain added: “I’m super excited and probably a little bit more relaxed now than I was a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got our team to the start line. I feel like our horse is going to run well. Whether we find another horse in the race that is better than us, who knows.”<\/p>\n

England had won only one their previous 17 Tests, including a 4-0 defeat on their last Ashes tour, when McCullum and Stokes united in the summer of 2022.<\/p>\n

They revolutionised England’s style of play, built a new team with a number of young players and earned impressive series wins at home against New Zealand and South Africa, then again against the Kiwis and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

But England have not managed a victory in a marquee five-Test series against either Australia or India, including a 2-2 draw in the last home Ashes in 2023.<\/p>\n

England have not won a single Test in Australia since their last series win in this country 14 years ago. Only five England teams have won Ashes series in Australia since World War II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coach Brendon McCullum believes his England team are ready for an Ashes series that could “define” them. England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-273408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}