It felt symbolic that news of Brendon McCullum’s sacking as England’s Test coach came only the day after his T20 team had moved top of the rankings with a 4–0 thrashing of India.
The fortunes of the two sides had gone in such different directions that the success of one simply accentuated the failure of the other. While Saturday’s win in Southampton was England’s 20th in 23 completed T20s, last month’s defeat by New Zealand at Trent Bridge was their seventh in nine Tests. In a results-driven business, McCullum ran out of red-ball rope.
It also seemed significant that Andy Flower, the arch-disciplinarian who coached England to their most recent series wins in both Australia (2010-11) and India (2012-13), immediately emerged as the favourite to replace him.
Flower famously prepared for that Ashes trip with a pitiless boot camp in the Bavarian forest that had more than one player questioning his choice of career. It is inconceivable he would have agreed to the anaemic warm-up programme that undermined England’s latest Ashes challenge almost before it had begun.
Flower’s task, should he accept it – and that may depend on being able to continue his lucrative and successful role as head coach of Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL – is to take them back to the top of the rankings, and win the 2027 Ashes. No pressure, then.
His approach would be poles apart from McCullum, not least because he regards the last-chance saloon as a metaphor rather than a social engagement. But his hard-nosed approach and technical rigour may be just what this talented but wayward Test set-up requires.
In a results-driven business, Brendon McCullum ran out of red-ball rope as he was sacked as England coach
For now, though, English cricket faces the kind of vacuum that reflects poorly on its administration: no captain, following the retirement of Ben Stokes, and suddenly no coach. Many will feel it is a surprise they still have the same managing director, but Rob Key has survived, with ECB chief executive Richard Gould talking vaguely of ensuring ‘that we are making the most effective changes in the most direct manner possible’.
The pity is it has all ended in a whimper, for McCullum began with a bang, winning 10 of his first 11 Tests, often in spectacular fashion, with England scoring at a rate never consistently seen in the format. For a while, it really did feel revolutionary.
But his team never got over the 2023 Ashes, when carelessness at Edgbaston and Lord’s, followed by rain in Manchester, turned what might easily have been a 4–1 victory into a 2–2 draw. After that, England won 14 and lost 16 of their 31 Tests, culminating in the recent defeat by New Zealand.
In truth, McCullum should have gone after the 2025-26 Ashes, when cracks first started to appear in his relationship with Stokes, and there seemed little sense that he knew how to take the team forward.
The ECB pleaded unconvincingly that he had adapted and evolved, but they had a vested interest: having added white-ball duties to his Test role, they could hardly sack him after the tour of Australia when a T20 World Cup was just round the corner.
Victory over New Zealand at Lord’s encouraged hopes of a revival, and the suggestion was that defeat at the Oval would not be held against McCullum because a contributory factor had been Stokes’s night out in the Rex Rooms.
Had England won the decider at Nottingham, McCullum would still be in the job. His fate was sealed during discussions on Friday night and Saturday morning, after which he had to preside over the T20 international in Southampton.
The reality is that his Test team failed to forge a convincing identity once things started to unravel, and the big names who had driven the early successes – Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Jonny Bairstow, even Chris Woakes – either retired or were dropped.
Andy Flower (left) and Andrew Strauss led England on a triumphant Ashes tour in 2010-11
It spoke of indecision that nine of the 41 cricketers in the Bazball era played no more than one Test, while a further eight played five or fewer. Of the six who played more than 25, Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley were eventually discarded, while Stokes decided he had had enough.
In the ECB statement announcing the news, Key said McCullum ‘leaves the Test team well set and poised to achieve great things’. Alas, the opposite is true, with the Test side now rivalling the one-day team – eighth in the rankings, only seven years after they won the World Cup – for ineptitude.
The new coach’s first task will be to agree to a new captain, with Gould suggesting that a split arrangement – as with Stokes and Harry Brook – was the likeliest ‘direction of travel’.
Daily Mail Sport reported last month that concerns over landing too much on Brook’s plate could lead to the interim appointment of Joe Root until the end of next year’s Ashes, at which point Brook could assume the Test role and hand the white-ball reins to Jacob Bethell.
But the new captain cannot be confirmed until the new coach has been appointed, leaving English cricket in the kind of limbo every sporting organisation dreads.
McCullum, meanwhile, must immediately put on a brave face and turn his attention to reviving the fortunes of the 50-over side, with only 15 months to go before the next World Cup in southern Africa.
It won’t be easy. When the first of three one-day internationals against India takes place at Edgbaston tomorrow/on Tuesday, the cricket will feel like a sideshow. Not for the first time this summer, the real story will be the hushed conversations taking place off the field and in the corridors.
