the Mark Robins to McCullum’s Sir Alex Ferguson<\/a> – granted the New Zealander has a long way to go.<\/p>\nBrook has always been one of Bazball’s most devoted believers.<\/p>\n
McCullum is the only Test coach Brook has had, the only permanent coach he has worked under as white-ball captain. He often speaks straight from the McCullum philosophical handbook.<\/p>\n
It was no surprise, therefore, that he credited his coach with the plan to promote Brook from number five to bat at three for the first time in his international career.<\/p>\n
It was McCullum who put the idea to his captain early on Tuesday morning, less than 12 hours before the start of the game.<\/p>\n
Some England players, like Jacob Bethell, who was nudged down to number four by Brook’s promotion, were told earlier in the day, but the rest were not fully made aware of the plan until McCullum spoke in the pre-match huddle.<\/p>\n
“Baz was the mastermind there,” Brook said.<\/p>\n
“He had the discussion with me this morning about going up the order and trying to maximise the powerplay.”<\/p>\n
McCullum’s move means England now have a free hit in their final Super 8 match against New Zealand on Friday. After that they will travel to India for a semi-final.<\/p>\n
Somehow, after stuttering and struggling to this point, they are the closest side to winning the title. Australia have gone already and defending champions India could follow before the week is out.<\/p>\n
If the co-hosts remain, one of South Africa or West Indies will surely be knocked out.<\/p>\n
Brook is two wins from becoming the fourth England men’s captain – after Paul Collingwood, Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler – to lift a World Cup.<\/p>\n
He is leading his way, which will bring moments that will leave you scratching your head. Now is the time for Brook to be backed, however.<\/p>\n
He is not only a captain, one sharp tactically on the field and supremely talented with the bat, but a leader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is, of course, one other man Brook owed a performance to. His coach Brendon McCullum was pushed to the brink by the Ashes defeat. Some will say he has already gone beyond the point from which he can return. But in securing a semi-final spot, Brook has nudged England closer to a result that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}