England has bitter ending when they lost the final test match against West Indies earlier this year. Their desperation to overcome will be rationally instrumented by the new head coach Brendon McCullum who has promised to introduce a new brand of cricket to England. He is a former Kiwi so it will be interesting to see how tacitly he cracks down the strategic plans of the New Zealand cricket team. They are visitors but not the first timers, New Zealand won the World Test Championship in 2021 in England.
Michael Atherton has told the sky sports that there’s a lot of star quality around New Zealand”.Atherton expects New Zealand to bring their best ahead of the three-test series against England beginning at Lord’s on Thursday. Also, he talks about rotational change in captaincy and coaching staff, “Usually teams get an initial uplift when there’s a change of management, captain, coach.”
Like English fans, Michael Atherton is optimistic that Brendon McCullum can change the England Test side ahead of the first Test against New Zealand.
From New Zealand side, while doing a press conference, Tim Southee lauded the efforts and team leading and managing skills of his ex captain and now England coach Brendon McCullum. According to him, “Brendon McCullum knows how to get best of the individuals”, he is expecting Brendon McCullum to create an exciting brand of cricket at England.
Entry of James Anderson and Stuart Broad has introduced a revival mode to English bowling attack. But the inconsistent or rather impotent English top order will need to come out with some strength. Maybe if Brendon McCullum goes ahead with aggressive brand of cricket, then we can see some positives but it remains uncertain nonetheless.
Kane Williamson has been short of runs since sustaining the elbow injury. How he commutes with the ongoing need and hoe he anticipates to the change after a long break from red ball cricket will be interesting to watch.