McCullum positive on squaring series despite humbling at Perth by saying the Ashes is a ‘marathon, not sprint’.
McCullum backs England’s team ethic to bounce back from chastening loss.
Following a humiliating defeat in the first Test in Perth, England’s head coach, Brendon McCullum, promised to shut out the outside noise after what he called “a very bad day” and declared that his defeated players will double down on their team solidarity.
Speaking to TNT Sports following England’s devastating eight-wicket loss in just two days due to Travis Head’s 69-ball century, McCullum said he had been optimistic about his team’s ability to defend a meagre 205 on a pitch that had provided pace and movement throughout and on which Australia had been dismissed for 132 in their opening innings.
As a stand-in opener for the injured Usman Khawaja, Head instead came out swinging and was able to stop England from using the aggressive lengths that had been so successful for their five-pronged speed attack on the first day.
“I thought 200 was actually a pretty good score for us to try and defend in the last innings,” McCullum said. “But the way Travis Head played was absolutely outstanding. It’s one of the best knocks I’ve seen in a pressure situation on a tough wicket.
“I spoke to Gilly [former Australia wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist] about five minutes before their last innings, and he said, ‘I think you guys have got 30 too many’. I said, ‘I hope so’, but we might have needed another 230 the way that Travis played.
“Fair play. We’ve always said that if someone’s able to stand up to what we throw at them, and be able to put us under pressure and deliver a performance such as that, then you have to tip your cap.”
“We will look at how we can control things better if that confronts us again,” McCullum said. “But at the same time, you’ve got to just acknowledge how special that knock was, particularly out of batting position as well. I thought was a brave call from the Australian coaches and from Travis Head as well, to put himself up the order.”
Given some of the stories that fuelled the pre-series phoney war, the reaction in the local media and among Australian and English supporters is likely to be out of control in the coming days due to the severity and nature of the defeat.
As has been the case throughout the highs and lows of his three and a half-year tenure, McCullum, however, supported the dressing room culture to endure the worst of the criticism.
“We’ve been trying to insulate against reacting to things too much for a little while,” he said. “We know that this one’s going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt not just us, but all the English people that follow this cricket team as well.
“There’ll be a lot of a lot of chatter. For us, it’s a matter of making sure that we don’t allow our confidence and our camaraderie to dip too low. We know that at our best, we’re a very good cricket team. We have now got an extended amount of time off over the next 10 to 12 days to make sure that when we get to Brisbane, we bounce back.
“One of my big beliefs is you got to build that unity, that cohesion, the connectivity and that camaraderie within a team for when you are under the biggest pressure, and the brightest lights, and things haven’t worked out accordingly. To me, there is no other way other than to stay together, and keep backing one another, and keep heading towards the target.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ve had a very bad day today, but we’ve done it before. That’s our blueprint. We’re married to that, and we won’t back down from that over the next four Tests.”