{"id":9973,"date":"2026-03-07T12:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9973"},"modified":"2026-03-07T12:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:48:20","slug":"brendon-mccullum-england-coach-makes-no-apologies-for-informal-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9973","title":{"rendered":"Brendon McCullum: England coach makes &#8216;no apologies&#8217; for informal environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A relaxed environment has been part of McCullum&#8217;s England set-up since he took over the Test side in 2022 &#8211; an attempt to relieve players of the pressures of playing international cricket.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England were accused of a lack of adequate preparation for the Ashes, playing only one warm-up match against England Lions at a club ground in Perth before the first Test.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After the Ashes it was revealed Harry Brook was punched by a nightclub bouncer the night before a one-day international in New Zealand, while a mid-series trip to Noosa was heavily scrutinised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A review by the England and Wales Cricket Board into England&#8217;s winter is under way, the culmination of which will confirm McCullum&#8217;s future, but there have already been some changes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There will be a warm-up match when they travel to Australia for the 150th anniversary Test next year and preparation matches are also likely before next winter&#8217;s other tours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England also added fielding coach Carl Hopkinson to their set-up for the World Cup after a host of dropped catches in Australia. That addition brought greater intensity to their training to the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McCullum will now return home to New Zealand before any formal announcement on his future is made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ll allow this period to land and you look back on the last five or six months, which has been pretty intense, and you look at what you got right, what you got wrong and start trying to work out ways you can improve on the areas that you need to,&#8221; said McCullum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;That&#8217;s just doing it with a bit of sound reason and logic when your emotions are out of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I make no apologies for running an informal, positive environment but to call it a casual environment is not quite fair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But in the end people are always going to have their views on how you go about things and that&#8217;s the role of the leader.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A relaxed environment has been part of McCullum&#8217;s England set-up since he took over the Test side in 2022 &#8211; an attempt to relieve players of the pressures of playing international cricket. England were accused of a lack of adequate preparation for the Ashes, playing only one warm-up match against England Lions at a club<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9973","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\/9973","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=9973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}