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England head coach Brendon McCullum is not willing to down the batting lineup's ultra-aggressive approach after the T20I series defeat. Ahead of the three-ODI series against India leading up to ICC Champions Trophy 2025, McCullum pointed out a few flaws in the batters' approach against spinners but does not want them to take too much time and push back England's T20 cricket four to five years.
“At times, we’ve been a touch tentative,” McCullum said. “We want to keep trying to apply pressure. Particularly when they’ve got such a good batting lineup, you don’t really have a time where you can just take time out of the game. Four or five years ago in T20 cricket it was like that, and I think we’ve seen it evolve so quickly that there is no dead time now.”
McCullum credited Indian spinners Varun Chakravarthy and Ravi Bishnoi. He feels England batters are good players of spin and the scoreline does not indicate the level of competition in the series. He also had an indirect message for the critics of England's batting saying that it will take some time.
“I think our guys are really good players of spin. We’ve probably not been at our best against them but credit goes to Chakaravarthy and (Ravi) Bishnoi as well. I know the scoreline reads 4-1 and it’s disappointing to lose the series but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I think we’ve seen a pretty clear gameplan of how we want to play the game,” the former New Zealand captain added.
Chakravarthy was the highest wicket-taker in the series with 14 wickets from five games including a five-wicket haul in a losing cause.
Why Wood replaced Saqib
McCullum also confirmed that pacer Saqib Mahmood who bowled a triple wicket-maiden in fourth T20I will be in the playing XI for the first ODI of the series on February 6. He also revealed the reason why Mark Wood replaced Mahmood for fifth T20I.
“Saqi was outstanding in the fourth T20 and he’ll play in the first ODI as well. We wanted Woody to charge in on this Mumbai surface and try to double down on our mantra and our philosophy,” the 43-year-old said.
England have been boosted by the return of their veteran batter Joe Root who was in stupendous form for Paarl Royals in the ongoing SA20 2025.
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