1,319 days, 44 test matches, 14 series, 25 wins, 17 losses, and 2 draws. England’s Test team under Brendon McCullum has been a success, right?
Before McCullum, England finished 4th in the 2019-21 World Test Championship cycle. In 2021-23, they finished 4th again; in 2023-25, they dropped to 5th; in the current cycle, they sit in 7th.
Before McCullum, England lost the 2021-22 Ashes tour in Australia in 12 days. The series was hailed as one of England’s worst ever. In 2025, England have crumbled to defeat Down Under again – this time in just 11 days.
Before McCullum, England won 2 out of their 6 previous away Test tours, including a statement win in South Africa. Since McCullum’s appointment, England have won 2 of their 6 away tours: beating Pakistan – where they have since returned and lost – before winning against a New Zealand side without Trent Boult, Neil Wagner, Kyle Jamieson and Mitchell Santner (for 2 of the 3 Tests).
So, to ask the question once again, England’s Test team under McCullum has been a success… right?
When the New Zealander was appointed on the 12th of May 2022, he said that he was aiming to “move the team forward into a more successful era”, but what would that success be defined by? Ashes success? World Test Championship success? Success away from home? As previously seen, they haven’t improved, and in some cases have weakened in these areas.
Sure, their 61.4% win/draw record looks nice, and is surely an improvement on the pre-McCullum era? Well, not quite. In the 44 Test matches before Bazball, England had a 59.1% win/draw record, with just one more loss (18) than Bazball’s record. Of course, England weren’t winning a lot during this period, but they weren’t losing any more than they are now.
England’s loss in Adelaide was the culmination of 3.5 years of change, revolution, innovation and yet, it was the same story as 4 years ago. Harry Brook’s reverse sweep, Jamie Smith’s pull shot, Ben Duckett’s flashing edge, Travis Head’s swashbuckling 170, and – the crowning moment, according to Nasser Hussain – Nathan Lyon turning one past Ben Stokes’ outside edge, to all but seal the spinner-less England’s defeat.
Every moment in that Test match felt like the peak of England’s issues under Bazball, and while they have been papered over for years with flashy shots, fast bouncers and high strike-rates, this match was not against Zimbabwe or Ireland, or on the roads of Pakistan (and Leeds!). There is no longer anywhere to hide in Australia, and those papered-over cracks, have turned into craters.
This series has left many to ponder: where do England go from here? I think that’s the wrong question. Instead we should be asking, where CAN England go from here? For the past 3 and a half years, players, coaches, and county teams have all overhauled themselves, in order to fit into this set up. Is there any going back now? It certainly won’t be simple.
Take Ollie Pope, for example, Bazball’s problem child. In 2020, the year he announced himself on the world stage, Pope averaged 43.73, at a strike rate of 57.06, very healthy for any Test batter. He was also doing this whilst batting at 5/6. However, since McCullum’s entrance as coach, he has been shoehorned in at number 3, and his average has dropped to 36.74, whilst his strike rate rose to 71.50. The dropping of Pope from the Test side has been one of the hottest topics in English cricket for the past few years, yet this is unfair on one of England’s best prospects in the past decade. The Bazball way clearly does not suit him, and it has potentially ruined a talent, which England desperately needed.
The 2nd innings in Adelaide showed this, as England needed him to play a gritty knock, which would have been much easier for the Pope of 5 years ago. Instead, he was jittery at the crease, and eventually (and inevitably) snicked off to Pat Cummins. He isn’t the only player to suffer as a result of Bazball: Dan Lawrence, Alex Lees, Haseeb Hameed – whose consistency would surely have earned him a chance in a different regime – and arguably, in recent times, Ben Stokes, who has seen a huge drop off in form, with his best innings coming when he has knuckled down and batted long.
It’s not just the batters as well. Forcing Jimmy Anderson into retirement was arguably McCullum’s biggest sin, just for his seam attack to crumble in Australia. Ollie Robinson, Matt Potts, and Olly Stone are just a few names who have been overlooked, whilst Carse, Atkinson and Tongue have been bowled into the ground over the past year.
And of course, the spinners. The biggest controversy in Bazball folklore. While Jack Leach, Liam Dawson, Tom Hartley, Dom Bess, Rehan Ahmed, and so many more spinners have worked on their craft and bowled hundreds of overs in the County Championship, Shoaib Bashir, a spinner who can’t even get into his own county side, has been constantly favoured over them all, due to a Twitter post… need I say more?
Bazball has certainly changed English Test cricket, but it hasn’t improved it. If this series ends 5-0, one thing will be clear: Bazball wasn’t revolutionary, it was a mistake.
