McCullum rues poor England performance as fightback too late and came too late to change direction of the series.
McCullum: ‘Maybe I didn’t get Ashes preparation right’.
The head coach of England, Brendon McCullum, has acknowledged that his team’s Ashes preparations will be subject to legitimate scrutiny after they lost the series after just 11 days of play, with two Test matches remaining.
Speaking to TNT Sports following Australia’s 82-run victory in Adelaide, which gave them an unbeatable 3-0 lead, McCullum admitted that their opponents had “outplayed us with the bat, outplayed us with the ball, and outplayed us in the field.” He also called their overall team performance the most “precise,” “formidable,” and “consistent” he had seen from an Australian team in many a year.
Despite a valiant performance in the face of hardship on the last live day of the series, none of those statements apply to England’s efforts. England overcame a low of 194 for 6 to reach 352, their biggest total of the season and their highest in Australia since the Boxing Day Test in 2017. They needed a Test-record chase of 435 to save the series.
“We’re obviously disappointed,” McCullum said. “We came here with high hopes, high ambitions and lofty goals, and we’ve been outplayed across three Test matches. You’ve got to cop it sweet when you don’t quite achieve what you’re hoping to.
“We knew coming down here that Australia is a very strong team in their own conditions,” he later added. “We thought we would be competitive, and that we would be able to seize some pressure moments, and we haven’t been able to do it. With the ball, we’ve not quite been relentless enough with our accuracy and challenging on the surface in the areas we need to. With the bat we haven’t scored enough runs, we haven’t quite found the tempo we need to operate at either. And in the field we have let opportunities go.”