BRENDON McCULLUM is convinced his close bond with “older brother” Stephen Fleming means they can succeed as dual England coaches where others have failed.
Fleming was appointed to the Test job and will begin his brief in South Africa in December after McCullum’s four-year reign ended in July – although he remains in charge of England’s white-ball sides.
In the previous instances where England have split the coaching roles, the needs of the Test side have taken priority, with McCullum the beneficiary from 2022 to 2024 as Matthew Mott was marginalised.
While England have had a setback after being ignominiously eliminated from the Pakistan tri-series with a match to spare, McCullum is upbeat the dynamic he has with Fleming as a former New Zealand team-mate and business partner will see them prosper in the long run.
“I know that Flem and I both have very strong ambitions to try and achieve ultimate success across all formats for English cricket,” said McCullum. “We’ll work very well together.
“He’s said in the media he’s like my older brother, which is probably true – he’s definitely older! We spoke every day before he took on the Test job and we continue to speak every day now.
“With Motty and I – and we are mates now – we started at the same time and the beauty of it now is I’ve had four years of exposure to English cricket. It’s not like Flem and I are starting off from the get-go.
“I can hopefully pass on some of the stuff which I’ve learned over the last four years which will allow Flem to hit the ground running a little bit easier.”
Having called the shots as all-format head coach, McCullum has been without many of his first-choice players during the tri-series in Pakistan, whose eight-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka on Tuesday confirmed England now cannot make Saturday’s final.
Premier paceman Jofra Archer was rested after a busy year while Jos Buttler and Jacob Bethell missed out through injury, but McCullum sees the positives of digging into his reserves.
He said: “There’s times where things might not go how you want them to go and you’ve almost got to catastrophise a little bit and start to plot and plan some strategies to be able to overcome that.
“Heaven forbid, Jos might go down on the eve of a World Cup final and you need to have plans in place to be able to ensure that panic doesn’t set in. It does give guys opportunities.”
McCullum presided over 27 wins in 49 Tests but they failed to beat Australia or India in marquee series, drawing 2-2 at home against both major rivals and suffering 4-1 defeats overseas.
“There was some stuff I thought we did really well and there were some things we left on the table,” McCullum said.
“You can’t change what you can’t change, so you keep moving forward.”
However, McCullum and England seem to have learned from their inadequate preparation leading into last winter’s tour of Australia, playing just one internal warm-up before losing the Ashes within 11 days.
After their tri-series in Pakistan, England head straight for Australia for a white-ball tour and will take on a Western Australia XI at the WACA six days before the first one-day match.
McCullum pointed to the lack of 50-over experience the majority of his side has had in recent months as a reason for this.
“You can’t manipulate schedules because there’s a lot of cricket so you’ve got to be a little bit sensible with it,” added McCullum.
“We want to get even more opportunities into these guys to keep testing their methods and understanding how to play one-day cricket.”
As for whether he is evolving as a coach, McCullum replied with a smile: “Maybe you guys are just starting to work me out a bit better.”
England’s already faint hopes of reaching the tri-series final were finally ended when Sri Lanka eased to a comfortable victory over Pakistan in Lahore.
After a famous one-wicket win over England sealed by foremr Yorkshire player Shadab Khan’s unbeaten century on Sunday, Pakistan crumbled to 110 all out as Dilshan Madushanka claimed career-best one-day figures of 5-34.
Sri Lanka overhauled the paltry target with more than 31 overs to spare to seal a place in the showpiece match on Saturday against Pakistan.
Before then, Sri Lanka will take on England in a dead rubber on Thursday at the Gaddafi Stadium.
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