Brendon McCullum has said the “tremendous confidence booster” of seeing their methods pay off against Australia’s World Test Championship winners can power England to greater success – including in the next Ashes series in 30 months’ time.
The England coach has been a Kiwi interloper experiencing cricket’s oldest international rivalry for the first time and clearly enjoying every moment. “I’ve looked from afar at this series and to now be a part of it and witness how special it is something quite incredible,” he said.
England’s experience in recent away Ashes series has been less than incredible: in four of their past five trips they have not won a single game and their 3-1 win in 2010-11 was the only occasion since 1986 when they have won more than once. But McCullum is optimistic that this side can improve on those performances.
“It’s a little way away and there’s different challenges to cross before then. You look back to when the skipper [Ben Stokes] took over and I came in as well, [the question was] would we be able to take on a great Australian team – and they are a great Australian team – and go toe to toe with them? I think the answer is yes and that’s a tremendous confidence booster for the group. There will be some new faces in two and a half years, there’s no doubt, for both sides, but I’d imagine it could be another cracking series when the time comes.”
McCullum said there were times during this series that England “got the balance wrong with the style we play”, and that they had “refined it slightly as the series wore on”, allowing them to win two of the last three games and dominate the other, which was cut short by rain.
“We have a certain style we try and exhibit every time we play. Early in the series Australia were able to stand up in their own way against us and be successful,” he said.
“From our point of view the most pleasing aspect is when we were under the most pressure at 2-0 down we stayed true to that and were able to manufacture some results that allowed us to walk away at 2-2. For the skipper to be able to galvanise the group the way he did and if anything to go out stronger with how we wanted to play is testament to his leadership. We stayed true to that [method] under the fiercest of pressure.”
Chris Woakes, who came into the team after those two defeats and went on to be named player of the series after taking 19 wickets at an average of 18.14, said confidence within the team never wavered. “The last three weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind, just amazing to be a part of,” he said. “The belief in the dressing room at Headingley was that we could win 3-2, which was amazing. I think in the past we may have thrown the towel in but that was never the case, and were it not for the weather maybe we would be standing here 3-2.”
Woakes made his Test debut in an Ashes Test at the Oval in 2013, and said it was “fitting” to enjoy his finest hour in the format at the same venue a decade later. “I’m just proud of myself, to be able to keep going. The resilience you have to show to play at this level, turning up day in, day out when the body’s sore and the mind is tired. The guys are cooked. This schedule is gruelling and when you’ve got such a tight series which means so much to so many people you want to be on it every single second of the day. Test cricket is nothing like any other sport, it really is gruelling.”
England ended with three of the top four run-scorers in the series, and though Australia’s Usman Khawaja topped that list with 496 Zak Crawley was not far behind with 480, silencing his critics by averaging 53.3 with a strike rate of 88.7. “Coming into the series he was under quite a lot of pressure,” McCullum said. “The great thing was he was able to block that out – and you hope that’s down to the environment the skipper’s trying to create and sincere messaging.
“But 480 runs at a strike rate of 90 against the best bowling attack in the world, against the Dukes ball in an Ashes series, people don’t do that. As the skipper says, you look at what people’s upsides are, what their best days are, rather than focusing on things that might not be there. We’ve seen someone really grow and develop over the last six weeks or so. It’s great for all the guys around the side and around county cricket – they know when they get the opportunity, they’ll get support.”
