Brendon McCullum signed off from a transformative first summer as England’s Test head coach with a shrug about “not doing a lot” and a reminder the last two openers to score mountains of runs have since been knighted.
The New Zealander claimed to not initially want the job in May when Rob Key, the director of England men’s cricket, plucked him from the franchise circuit and paired him with the captaincy of Ben Stokes. A flatlining dressing room, Key decided before his own appointment a month earlier, needed an urgent jolt of positivity.
