Brendon McCullum: England’s Ashes preparation didn’t work

“We lost 3-0 so you would probably say there was room for change there. You put your hand up as a coach and say you might not have got that right. I felt it would give us our best chance because it has previously. Sitting here 3-0 [down], it didn’t work.”

On previous Test tours under McCullum, England have generally spent little time in the host country ahead of the first Test, preferring training camps elsewhere, and won the first Test on all five occasions until they were beaten in two days in the Ashes opener in Perth last month.

“It is disappointing when you lose and I’m sure there will be plenty of questions asked and rightfully so,” he added. “We haven’t got everything right. I haven’t got everything right. You accept that and try to identify things you need to polish up. For us, it was a matter of trying to replicate what has been successful for us away from home with our preparation. Maybe we didn’t get that right.”

England spent more than a week in Perth ahead of the series and played an internal three-day match against the England Lions, but they had an offer many months ago to play a game against a state side in Melbourne or Adelaide that would have been at a slightly earlier date and close to the time many of the players were arriving from New Zealand where they had been playing white-ball matches.

Speaking on the second day of the Adelaide Test, Todd Greenberg, chief executive of Cricket Australia, when asked if more thorough preparation had been offered than England took up, said: “Yes it was. Clearly on this occasion they decided to do what they thought was right.”

McCullum also felt that during what became an 11-day gap between first and second Tests the England players spent too many days training in humid conditions after going down to an eight-wicket defeat in an opening match that lasted only six sessions.

“The five intense training days leading into Brisbane when we knew it was going to be hot … A few things you look at retrospectively. Your job as a coach is to try get performance on the field. I was confident we had it right but obviously we didn’t.”

Ben Stokes declined to make much of the preparation issue, saying: “I hate living in hindsight because you can never change what you have done. It’s what you do out there that counts and we’ve not been able to stand up to what Australia have thrown at us. [For] all the training and hours building up to the series, it’s what you do out there that matters most, and we’ve not been able to stand up to the barrage of execution from Australia.

“Obviously it [losing the Ashes] sucks. It’s very disappointing knowing we can’t achieve what we set out to do here. It moves over to what else we have in front of us. We still have two games left and a hell of a lot to play for. We’re not going to turn around and kick the stumps.”

McCullum said he thought his players had put too much pressure on themselves, which was a surprising admission given he has spent three years encouraging England to play without fear of the consequences, and yet here — apparently — they were only able to do so when the Ashes were all but lost.

“The last two days have probably been our best cricket and that’s because we’ve just played. The previous nine days, we were so caught up and driven to succeed, we’ve almost got in our own way and stymied our talent. It’s only the last two days where we’ve let go. There’s a lesson. How do you free guys up when the pressure is at its highest? They are things that you have to learn.

“Again, I’ll put my hand up as coach and say there should have been absolute clarity of, ‘Whatever happens in this series, this is how we need to play’, because that is going to give us our best chance … Maybe we didn’t get it right.”

He conceded Australia had been better in all departments: “We thought we would be competitive and able to seize some pressure moments. We haven’t been able to do it. With the ball, [we’ve] not quite been relentless enough with our accuracy. With the bat we haven’t scored enough runs, we haven’t quite found the tempo we need to operate at, and in the field we have let opportunities go.”

Asked if Australia had beaten the Bazball approach out of England, Pat Cummins, their captain, said: “They seem to have changed their style quite a bit game to game. That can happen in overseas conditions. You’re always trying to find a method that works. Day two was surprising. It was 40-odd degrees, it was a very flat wicket and they shut up shop for half the day, which I was pretty happy with.

“I’m sure they’ll talk about it and come at us with different plans for Melbourne and Sydney. I’m glad we’ve been able to stick to our guns and play what we play best, which has worked.”

Cummins sounded doubtful about playing the Boxing Day Test after bowling 34 overs in his first game for six months. Nathan Lyon is almost certain to miss the game after sustaining a hamstring injury in the field, and turning up for the celebrations on crutches.

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