McCullum: Bazball needs refining after our confidence took a hit

Head coach says his England team were ‘outplayed’ and ‘outskilled’ during India series defeat but insists lessons have been learnt

Brendon McCullum has admitted that England’s Bazball style of play needs to become “more refined” after a 4-1 series defeat by India that damaged the team’s confidence.
England crumbled in the final Test of a competitive series and McCullum believes the pressure India’s aggressive batting and brilliant spinners placed on England brought out a “timidity” in the tourists, allowing “doubt to creep into our game”.
McCullum said that over his first two years in charge England had enjoyed a “a little bit of luck” that can “paper over a couple of the cracks”, although he would not be drawn on examples.
“When you are exposed in the way we have been here, you know that you have to get better in some areas,” he said. “The next couple of months will be us working out that and making sure when we come to the summer we are a more refined version of what we are at the minute.
“In the last two years we have done pretty well, to get from where we were to what we have got to now. We’ve discovered a lot about our side and the talent within English cricket. We’ve seen some guys who have really grown in that period of time. But we have to keep growing because there are many very skilled cricketers around the world and many very good cricket teams. If we stay where we are we’re not going to be good enough to be able to go toe-to-toe with them.
“Credit to India for the way that they played. They are always under a lot of pressure as well because of the expectations on their side and for them to be able to handle that during those moments shows how good a cricket team they are in their own conditions. They probably outplayed us at the style of cricket that we want to play and made us start to retreat a little bit so that’s something that we will have to change.
“We didn’t get what we came here for. We’ve learnt a lot out of this tour. India outplayed us, they outskilled us and in the clutch moments were just too good for us really.
“We will allow dust and hurt to settle a bit as well and then use that hurt and experience we have in the game to make changes we need to ensure we are a better version of what we have started out as.
“We are obviously disappointed, we came here with high hopes and felt we had really progressed as a team and on this occasion we’ve got to acknowledge we’ve got a bit of work to do moving forward. I think as long as we’re prepared to put our hands up and say that we need to adjust some of those things, never throw away what we’ve done to this point because those are the convictions and methods that we’ve got, but you also need to keep improving.
“We will have some time to reflect and come back bigger, stronger and more refined.”
McCullum acknowledged that on occasion his team have not helped themselves with their public pronouncements, such as Ben Duckett answering “the more the better” when asked how many England would like to chase in the third Test in Rajkot, which they ended up losing by 434 runs.
“We do have belief within our group,” McCullum said. “It has taken a bit of a hit over the last couple of weeks. We have to be smarter with those comments. It is fine to inwardly believe what you can achieve but just be a bit smarter around how we say things sometimes. But it is people growing up in the environment right. They are not the finished articles yet and surely they shouldn’t be hung for making a positive comment in the media that might be construed as arrogance. It is not arrogance, just confidence in the group.”
McCullum was not drawn on the future of specific players, and there is no rush to jump to conclusions with no Test cricket until July, when a series against West Indies begins a run of 12 matches in six months. He said that no decision was made over whether Ben Foakes, Jonny Bairstow or another gloveman would keep wicket in the summer, and said that Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley were putting pressure on Jack Leach’s place as the premier spinner.
He did say, though, that James Anderson fighting back from a poor Ashes series to pick up 10 wickets in India, including his 700th in Test cricket, epitomised what he wanted from his team. He added that Anderson, who turns 42 in July, remains in England’s plans if he wants to play on.
“Again what he’s done is a really good snapshot for us of where we’re sat at the end of a tough India tour,” McCullum said. “If Jimmy wants to keep going we’ll certainly look to have him around.”