Brendon McCullum was the catalyst behind the increase in the tempo. Having walked out to the middle with New Zealand 82 for 4 at a rate of just 2.31 per over, ‘Baz’ came in and changed everything. With a first innings lead of 239, the Kiwis still had a little way to go to set England a target while leaving enough time in the game to win the Third Test in Auckland and therefore the series.
By lunch on day four, McCullum and Peter Fulton had moved the score on to 176 for 4, a lead of 415. There’s no way England would get that, surely? Only one team in history had managed such a feat.
But after the 40-minute break, the home side batted on. Fulton was eventually claimed by Steven Finn for 110 having added 69 off 61 balls in his partnership with McCullum, yet still the Kiwis stayed out there. It was only after BJ Watling was caught at deep midwicket off Monty Panesar that the picture changed. New Zealand were 241 for 6, leading by 480 runs.
McCullum didn’t want to declare, though. The skipper stayed out in the middle, leaning against his bat waiting for Tim Southee to join him. Instead it was the 12th man, Doug Bracewell, who ran out to tell him coach Mike Hesson had decreed now was the time to declare. Overtly angered by the decision, the captain was eventually persuaded to head back to the pavilion. McCullum’s aggressive knock of 67 not out in 53 balls – which had helped to add 159 in 22 overs – had left England with no chance of a victory, yet his insistence on staying out there for another 8.2 overs after lunch had injected some hope of a draw for the tourists.
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In all, New Zealand had taken 11 overs out of the game post-lunch when the innings break was taken into account. England would have to see out 143 rather than 154 overs to rescue a 0-0 series tie from their 2013 tour. So when Matt Prior, Stuart Broad and Panesar combined on the final afternoon to save the Test with a single wicket to spare, McCullum will have been left kicking himself. This was a NZ side that didn’t win too many Test matches at the time, and a prime opportunity had been passed up.
These days, McCullum is the gung-ho leader of a wonderful new England team. On Monday they clinched an eighth win in nine Test matches by a dramatic 26-run margin against Pakistan, and while their run rate might have dropped from the First Test win in Rawalpindi it remained their tempo which separated them from Babar Azam’s side in Multan. They batted for 49 overs fewer than their hosts but had racked up runs at a speedy rate once more.
Add in their aggressive declaration in the First Test, leaving Pakistan around 100 overs to knock off 343, and England have found different ways to get the job done whilst remaining true to McCullum’s vision. While the Test coach and his skipper, Ben Stokes, have adopted the Kiwi’s positive approach to batting throughout, there has been no conservatism of the like McCullum deployed as captain back in Auckland in 2013. To suggest England are reckless would be to ignore the fact that they are learning from their collective experiences. Attacking? Yes. Aggressive? Yes. Flamboyant? Yes. Innovative? Hell, yes. Reckless? Not one bit.
To many, the First Test defeat to South Africa in August was proof that an a white-ball attitude to red-ball cricket can only take you so far. But in reality, that was the exception which has proved the rule. A series whitewash of New Zealand, a rearranged win over India and a 2-1 victory over the Proteas has been followed with a series success in Pakistan, that rarest of commodities. The new approach is working against whatever opposition, and in various conditions.
McCullum was an outlier as a batter, and is now proving to be the same as a coach. In a world in which more and more players are being built to succeed in the shorter forms of the game, ‘Baz’ is harnessing those abilities to make one of the most explosive Test match teams in cricket history. And for as long as he is learning from his experience and applying that to his coaching style, England are in incredibly good hands.
Long may it continue!
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