England will benefit from the former New Zealand captain’s experience but improvement will also rely on ECBThere is an old story about a Somerset team meeting sometime in the 1980s, when they were struggling to come up with plans for how to bowl to the other side’s batsmen. “Easy,” Ian Botham said about the first opener, “I’ll bounce him out.” As for the second: “I’ll bounce him too.” It was the same for the No 3. And the No 4. And so on right through the order. “Bounce him”, “bounce him”, “bounce him”. It can be a simple game when you’re that good at it. It reminded me of a conversation I had with Andrew Flintoff last year. “Let’s be...
Young players need to be integrated slowly for best chance of success so putting Root and Bairstow lower down defies logicThe first Test of the summer and of a new era starts against New Zealand on Thursday at Lord’s. Some will be expecting instant results from the new coach, Brendon McCullum, and his captain, Ben Stokes – after all, when the white-ball reset was triggered after the humiliation of the 2015 ODI World Cup, in England’s next match on home soil, also against New Zealand, they scored more than 400 runs for the first time and set out on a path that ended in them winning the World Cup four years later.The progress was remarkable, with a strategy of ultra-aggressive...
McCullum concentrating on his side playing one match at a time as England prepare to face New Zealand on ThursdayIt was an accomplished first outing for Brendon McCullum, the new England Test head coach. Decked out in an official training top, skinny trousers and white trainers (no socks, naturally), a little bleary-eyed after the 12,000-mile journey from Dunedin, the former New Zealand captain rocked up at sunny Lord’s on Friday morning looking as relaxed as the team environment he intends to create.Over the course of an hour speaking to various outlets – including a couple of European correspondents from back home – the 40-year-old espoused the philosophy which attracted Rob Key, director of men’s cricket, to hire a head coach...
Key is betting on McCullum to work his magic as he did with New Zealand, but it will need more than that to fix Test teamThere are plenty of people who say they can tell you what makes the All Blacks great. New Zealand’s rugby team support a cottage industry of articles, books, seminars and podcasts explaining their success. Exactly how their cricket side got to be the best in the world, though, when they have a smaller budget and player base than almost any other Test-playing nation, is a harder question to answer.Not least because so many of the people who were involved along the way seem so reluctant to talk about it at any length. So the England...
New Zealander is impressive and his appointment as head coach may prove to be an inspired decision – but it is extraordinary, given that he has not done a lot of coachingHaving rolled the dice on an untested director of cricket in Rob Key, the England and Wales Cricket Board has kept gambling. Ben Stokes has had only one first-class game as captain but he is a very popular and highly regarded player and has already shown encouraging confidence in his leadership and his decision‑making.He can be an excellent leader for the England Test team, but my instinct was that he would benefit from having an experienced coach beside him, someone who could make sure the weight of his job...