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Until the very bitter end, we have been confronted with the cool indifference of Brendon McCullum, a man seemingly more absorbed with his own image than the catastrophe he has visited upon English cricket.
There was Baz on Monday, sitting in the shade of the Sydney stand with his unnecessary sunglasses on, a picture of such indifference as the fifth Test headed in the same wretched direction as every other that you wished someone would walk up and shake the man from his complacency.
These past few days have been a microcosm of the entire desperate winter, with hints of the talent and promise and beauty at the heart of the England team punctuated by the same culture of laziness and swagger which McCullum has made gospel.
For every flash of Harry Brook’s transparent brilliance there has been one of those acts of wanton mindlessness which has reduced him to an average of under 40 runs on this tour. In so many ways, Brook has been the winter’s tragic figure, so steeped in the Bazball mantra that he can’t see how it has eaten away at his own immense potential and hollowed him out.
It felt like our annexed national game was being restored to us as Jacob Bethell, a young player for the ages, compiled a century written through with patience and concentration on the fourth day in Sydney.
The observation of Michael Vaughan, whose broadcasting has been superb throughout, encapsulated so very well the wonderful reassurances that the 22-year-old’s innings has given those of us who thought we were going mad. ‘For a couple of years, I’ve thought, “Am I wrong?”’ he said. ‘That Test cricket has moved on and you do need to play in a different way. For the first time in two or three years, I have a smile on my face.’
If McCullum had one ounce of humility and self-awareness, we would be hearing from him tomorrow – whatever the outcome – that the experiment he brought to English cricket had failed on the great Ashes stage. That after three-and-a-half years in which England have not won a single five-Test series and got nowhere near a World Test Championship final, he will now be stepping away.
It won’t happen, of course, because those are not McCullum characteristics and because the highly remunerated geniuses at the ECB are apparently too mesmerised by the man to do the necessary and fire him forthwith.
As my colleague Lawrence Booth reported two days ago, it seems that the ECB’s Richard Thompson and Richard Gould will give McCullum the chance to stay on after next month’s T20 World Cup if he agrees to tighten up the team culture. A deeply unfathomable decision which truly makes the heart sink.
A nonsense, too, given the obvious depth of his personal distaste for precision, preparation and intellectual curiosity in cricket. This is an individual with no appetite for intense net sessions, or even something as basic as wicketkeeping and high-ball catching drills on the outfield before a day’s play begins.
Vaughan also observed on Tuesday that Alex Carey’s pre-match routines, akin to those of Matt Prior and Alec Stewart in the days long before this current madness took hold, are something he does not see from Jamie Smith.
That’s hardly surprising given that coaching appears to be a part of the uncool bracket in the court of Baz. It’s a slimmed down backroom staff now, with Marcus Trescothick and Jeetan Patel the only full-time assistants, David Saker only engaged on a short-term deal as a bowling consultant and no fielding specialist since Paul Collingwood left the set-up at the beginning of last summer to deal with unspecified personal issues.
Tim Southee’s truncated work with the quicks was over when he left the tour after the first Test. This diminution of the coaching infrastructure is nothing less than a scandal.
Please don’t let us now be asked to stomach the notion, then, that McCullum will in some way change the script. The resurrection of a viable Test cricket culture, in which technique, balance, composure and calmness command a place alongside reverse ramps and overhitting, would require a dimension shift, not some kind of cosmetic modification.
It was generous of Vaughan to suggest that McCullum, at the age of 44, was still young enough to learn and evolve, given that the former captain was one of the individuals Ben Stokes dismissed as ‘has-beens’ when he questioned the level of preparation for this tour.
But the idea of conventionality being restored by him and his buddy Rob Key, the director of cricket, is delusional.
If the evidence of the past two months isn’t enough, do check out on YouTube the ‘Sky Sports masterclass’ broadcast in 2016, in which Key, then the TV interviewer, quizzed McCullum on the technical aspects of his batting.
‘I try to hit it over there, sometimes over there, sometimes over there,’ the Kiwi says. And how does he play with fast hands? ‘I don’t really know.’ And how does he execute the pull shot? ‘I don’t even know how I play it. I think it’s more of a swivel.’ So speaks the man in whom we have invested everything.
We might be fortunate enough to hear that ‘Baz’ has passed up the opportunity to stay. But if he won’t go of his own accord, will someone at least have the courage to take him outside and quietly relate what he doesn’t seem to have seen from behind those terribly cool sunglasses. That it’s become embarrassing now. That it’s over.
