Brendon McCullum’s final call, like a last act of petty defiance, was to have a beer.
On the evening before McCullum was sacked as England’s Test head coach, he used his authority to lift the ECB’s drinking ban. “I think we’ll have a quiet beer and just let this one land,” said McCullum, reflecting on England’s restorative 4-0 win over India which sent them to the summit of the T20 world rankings. “Just as long as no one lands on the front page.”
Hours later, it was McCullum’s name in the headlines. The ECB’s CEO Richard Gould credited the coach for breathing “new life” into the England Test team over the past four years, but added: “The time is right to make a change as we target victory in The Ashes next summer.” McCullum , who will stay on as white-ball coach, said he was “gutted … but I respect the decision”.
The hedonistic destruction of India over recent days stirred memories of those first summer days and everything that was loved about the Bazball era. Wickets, sixes, impossible numbers. Carefree cricket, the entertainers, winning wearing sunglasses and sliders, permanently in holiday mode. Beers by the pool, beers in the pool.
England had been horrendous to watch, to play for, to write about, until McCullum sprinkled some magic dust into the Test arena. He gave Stuart Broad and James Anderson a new lease of life, he made Joe Root see batting from a new perspective. Some of the cricket that followed was incredible, unthinkable: the wild run rates, the bonkers fourth-innings chases. Test cricket reached new fans, old fans, fans tired of watching England collapse in a heap.
But the entire project increasingly lacked introspection when things went wrong. It lacked humility when they failed to prepare seriously for the Ashes, and failed to acknowledge failing to prepare seriously for the Ashes. Crucially, it lacked landmark series victories against England’s biggest rivals. Defeats racked up. At some point, someone smashed a bottle in the shallow end and Bazball stopped being fun.
If one game encapsulated McCullum’s reign it was the second of the two-match series against New Zealand in Wellington, in February 2023. Brook hit a magnificent 186 in the first innings and England declared; New Zealand struggled and England could have put on more runs but instead enforced the follow-on. New Zealand hammered 483 and left England needing 258 to win the match and series. England collapsed, recovered and eventually lost by one run in one of the most extraordinary Test matches ever played. It was exactly the type of stay-up-to-3am Test cricket McCullum had promised. Ben Stokes said he felt “blessed” to be a part of it.
But England lost the game and drew the series from a position of almighty strength. They had effectively thrown the result for entertainment’s sake, for their crusade to save Test cricket from itself, or the IPL or something. From that moment on it was like England had become unmoored from outcomes, from consequences, from the art and skill of Test match cricket. Results petered away and with them went the goodwill, the room for error, the generous space given for some basic mistakes.
Not that Rob Key or the rest of the ECB hierarchy lost faith. Their lengthy post-Ashes review concluded that everybody – captain, coach, director – should keep their jobs. The obvious question is, why now? It was only three months ago that Gould said sacking McCullum would have been the “easy thing to do” after the Ashes. “That’s not the route that we’re going to take,” he added.
So this is quite the U-turn. What new information has come to light since March? Was the hope that England would drop Zak Crawley and thus be transformed into a savvy Test-match operation? Did it really take the series defeat by New Zealand to confirm what was already plainly obvious in Australia?
Clearly, McCullum’s time had come to an end: the lack of detail, the lack of planning, the absence of any sign that he could take England to the next level. McCullum said as much himself on Stuart Broad’s For the Love of Cricket podcast last year when he explained that his talent was “giving a team a bit of soul and trying to give them some purpose and give them some freedom, and push them towards a bit of bravery and courage out on the field”.
Explaining why he didn’t initially take the white-ball job, McCullum added: “I looked at where the white-ball side was at. You’re trying to take the team from good to great, and they’re not really my skills, as such.”
McCullum was exactly who England needed in order to resurrect a dying Test team in 2022. But the next step, lifting England from good to great, required something different and over the past two years, McCullum didn’t show he could be that coach.
Which isn’t to say he is a bad coach, just the wrong person for what England need right now. The white-ball setup feels right for McCullum, his place. His relationship with Harry Brook might be easier to nurture than that with Stokes, a more emotional, challenging character. England’s toiling ODI team needs the kind of restorative touch McCullum specialises in ahead of next year’s World Cup.
The Test team, meanwhile, is in disarray. England currently have no captain, no all-rounder and an opening partnership on trial. They have no discernible style or approach, no clear idea or identity. The wicketkeeper is suspect and the bowling unit is uncertain. They haven’t won a series since 2024, the Ashes is 11 months away and England are woefully unprepared. Haven’t we seen this one before?
Brook will probably become the all-format captain, an almighty task in the perma-cricket era. As for the next head coach, Justin Langer has been mentioned and would be an intriguing choice, though perhaps one made primarily for the clicks, the likes, the Netflix docu-series. There’s Eoin Morgan and Jonathan Trott. Alastair Cook might be motivated to reroute a career path which is mainly just conversations with Steven Finn. The most obvious choice is the return of Andy Flower, if he can be lured away from franchise cricket.
Much depends on England’s new direction. Where do you go from Bazball? How do you recalibrate those deeply stressed dials? Do England’s attacking instincts simply need honing, rough edges that need sharpening a little? Or does the entire vision need reframing, Test cricket presented through a new lens?
That decision rests largely with one man. Stokes, McCullum and Key came as English cricket’s Test triumvirate, three parts of one belief system. But the Ashes has a habit of ending cricket careers one way or another. Divorced, beheaded, survived: Key is the last man standing, the last cactus in the desert, looming over the English game like some pickled ghoul. His task now is to clear up the mess from a disastrous high summer.
