Brendon McCullum – the former Kiwi skipper and coach of KKR in IPL has termed the current England Test side, which toured Australia for the Ashes 2021/22, as “hopeless”, adding that not just coach Justin Langer but any other coach in his place would have achieved a similar result against the Joe Root-led side. Australia defeated England 4-0 in the five-Tests Ashes series.
As Justin Langer’s resignation from the post of Australian head coach’s job rocks the cricketing world, Brendon McCullum said that while the 51-year-old former opener did a great job of regaining the trust of the nation following the Sandpaper-gate ball-tampering scandal of 2018 in South Africa, the team’s performance wasn’t that impressive as was being made out to be.
England Was Hopeless; Any Coach Would Have Won Ashes: Brendon McCullum
Justin Langer’s exit has led to a huge outcry with several of his former teammates, including Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne among others, castigating Cricket Australia (CA) for its handling of the matter.
Justin Langer’s contract as Australia head coach was due to expire in June 2022 but CA was only willing to give him an extension till the ICC T20 World Cup in October-November 2022.
“England were hopeless, so I think anyone that was at the helm in the Ashes, they would have won that,” McCullum said on Tuesday. “The T20 World Cup (in the UAE) was a really good performance, but aside from that, the performance was just a bit middling for an Australian cricket side.”
Brendon McCullum believes that Justin Langer lost the respect of his players due to his coaching style. According to reports, Justin Langer’s position as the coach had become shaky in August last year after players and support staff had made their dislike of his “volatile micromanagement style” known.
“The danger was that he lost the changing room, he lost the group,” said McCullum. “The two most recent performances of the T20 World Cup and the Ashes, from what I understand, a lot of that was actually player driven.
“After the feedback he had from Cricket Australia and the players previously was that he was too intense and needed to take a step back. And so he took that step back, which was great, but then they got the success,” said McCullum.
“So was it the players who were driving it (the success) forward, or was it his ability to step back, and was that going to last forever,” he said.
Notable that Cricket Australia offered Justin Langer a short-term expansion which the 51-year old declined so both parties decided to part ways. His contract was set to expire in June but he resigned it with immediate effect.
Brendon McCullum: Justin Langer Didn’t Win A Test Series Away From Home
Under Justin Langer, while Australia retained the Ashes in England in 2019 with a 2-2 draw, the head coach was unable to guide the side to any away series victory in his tenure, something Brendon McCullum feels is a mediocre achievement.
“He didn’t win a Test series away from home, which for an Australian side is pretty average really, and he wasn’t overwhelmingly successful. Yes, he did a good job while he was there, but I can kind of see why they wanted to head in a different direction as well.”
Brendon McCullum pointed out that Australia hasn’t travelled much in his tenure as they couldn’t win a single away series in the last 4 years.
Australia drew the series by 2-2 in England and they lost the 2-match series by 0-1 in UAE against Pakistan. Justin Langer was appointed as Australia’s head coach in 2018. Under his coaching, Australia retained the Ashes in England for the first time in 18 years and also won their maiden 2021 T20I World Cup title last year in the UAE.