The series is on the line and, in all likelihood, jobs with it. But for Brendon McCullum, the latter is irrelevant. The England head coach has instead backed an unchanged top seven to deliver a fightback in the third Ashes Test and flip a narrative that has already featured talk of a whitewash bubble up.
At 2-0 down with three to play, all wriggle room has disappeared for England. But talk of Ollie Pope potentially being dropped, or even Ben Stokes moving to No 3, was shot down by McCullum as his players resumed training on Sunday afternoon. No going back now was the message.
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“I wouldn’t have thought so,” replied McCullum when asked whether a batting lineup averaging 22 to Australia’s 37 needed freshening up when the third Test gets under way at Adelaide Oval on Wednesday.
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“These conditions [in Adelaide] should suit the style of batters that we’ve got as well. We know we haven’t got enough runs so far in this series. We’ve been in positions where we could have and made some mistakes.
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“But it’s not about throwing out what has been successful for us over the last few years. It’s about having more conviction. Kneejerk reactions or chopping and changing settled batting lineups is not really our way.”
As for whether a slide to 3-0 down could cost him his job – two years left on his contract and likely to cost the England and Wales Cricket Board a seven-figure sum – McCullum replied: “It doesn’t really bother me, to be honest.
“But I certainly don’t coach to protect the job. I coach to get the best out of people. I firmly believe that if we play our best cricket, we are a massive chance in this Test match. If we do that, then the narrative changes and the series momentum changes. But it’s all in front of us to achieve.”
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If there are changes to the England XI then they look likely to come with the ball, with Josh Tongue being primed to make his first appearance since the English summer. One of Gus Atkinson (three wickets at 78) or Brydon Carse (nine at 26 but hemorrhaging more than five an over) could drop out.
McCullum said: “Everyone knows what [Tongue] brings: high pace, hits the wicket hard from a fuller length, and he can swing and reverse swing the ball and reverse swing the ball. If that’s what we deem is going to be most successful then he’ll get a run.”
One man McCullum is throwing his support around is Jofra Archer, not least given some of the (chiefly Australian) criticism that met his fiery late spell in Brisbane when the match was essentially lost.
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“If you mope around bowling 75mph in that last innings then the narrative would be very different,” McCullum said. “The skipper asked [the players] not to mope around, not to feel sorry for themselves. ‘We have been outplayed in this game but we have the opportunity with 60 odd runs to fire some bullets.’
“Jofra has a very good ability to go through the gears. Because he’s got an easy action, I think it can be often misinterpreted as bowling within himself. Sometimes you need to bowl within yourself to be a little bit more accurate and give yourself the best chance to zero in on someone.”
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Dale Steyn was given as an example of this and how England wish Archer would morph into the great South African quick in the coming days. Another headache is the spinner, with Will Jacks the incumbent but Shoaib Bashir primed for two years, one would think, with this venue in mind.
“It’s not about fighting the war’s that’s been. It’s focusing on the one that’s coming,” McCullum added, without committing to this particular spot.
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