After losing the second Test match last week and going 2-0 down in the ongoing Ashes series, England coach Brendon McCullum said that there will be no change to the visitors’ Bazball approach, adding that he hoped for a better execution from his players.
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“We came here with high hopes and high expectations. We had a plan that we felt was going to give ourselves the best chance of being successful. We haven’t quite executed that so far, and Australia has seized those key moments and hence they sit 2-0 up. It doesn’t mean that we throw that plan out. We just need to chisel away at some of the things we haven’t got quite right and make sure that we still have that conviction of what we’re trying to achieve. I think these conditions should suit our style a little bit better as well … this is probably more attuned to our best style of cricket,” McCullum told reporters at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
The 3rd Test of the series will start in the Adelaide Oval from Wednesday and if England lose that too, they’ll go 3-0 down, ending all their hopes of taking back the Ashes.
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“We’ve had a top seven now for a period of time, and we’ve been reasonably successful with it,” McCullum said.
“We know we haven’t got enough runs so far in the series … but for us to go on and win the series, it’s not about throwing out what’s been successful. It’s about having more conviction. It’s about making sure that we have our plans and our disciplines around it. Just screw it down a touch more. Knee-jerk reactions and chopping and changing settled batting line-ups is not really our thing.”
The former Kiwi batter has come under fire for his aggressive approach to the game after England slumped to losses by eight wickets in two days in Perth, and four days in Brisbane.
Several of England’s batters have struggled for runs in Australia but McCullum said wholesale changes to the line-up for Adelaide were highly unlikely.