Image Credit- AP
After their 4-1
loss, Brendon McCullum says that India will need to work on their refinement
and have some difficult talks. He acknowledges that India’s weaknesses were
exposed in England, which made them play “timid” cricket.
Despite being McCullum’s first series defeat, the head coach did not mince
words about how things transpired after England’s first-round victory in
Hyderabad. India romped to an innings victory in three days at Dharamsala,
following the surrender of strong positions in the preceding three Tests.
With McCullum
leading the team and Ben Stokes serving as captain, England’s total record is
at 14 victories out of 23 and 8 losses. Out of 13 games played since the
beginning of 2023, seven of those losses have occurred. Even though they
haven’t lost a series since the beginning of 2013, McCullum acknowledged that
there were particular things to work on once the dust settled and that learning
from the experience would help improve the overall strategy.
“Sometimes, you can get away with things,” McCullum said. “But
when you’re exposed the way we have been in the back end of this series in
particular, it does require some pretty deep thinking and some adjustment to
make sure we’re staying true to what we believe in.
“If anything, we got more timid as the series went on, and that was
because of the pressure that was applied to us by the Indian line-up, not just
with the ball. With the bat, they put us under a tremendous amount of pressure,
too.
“There are some things where you can get a little bit of luck on your side
and you paper over a couple of the cracks. When you are exposed in the way we
have been here, you know that you have to get better in some areas. The next
couple of months will be us working out that and making sure when we come to
the summer we are a more refined version of what we are at the minute.”