Test Match Special - Baztalks

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

England coach Brendon McCullum joins Daniel Norcross, Chief cricket reporter Stephan Shemilt and former England bowler Steven Finn to review the international summer and look ahead to the winter – including the much anticipated Ashes.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The Dakar Rally is the ultimate off-road challenge, perfect for the ultimate defender. The high-performance defender, Octa, 626 horsepower twin turbo V8 engine and intelligent 6D dynamics air suspension. Learn more at Landrover.ca. The imperative for businesses has never been clearer. The age of experimentation is over. We're talking transformation and winning at scale from AI that actually drives our own. We are going through that curve of understanding what the technology really can and cannot do

to turning reams of data into real competitive advantage. A lot of these successful companies, they treat data as a product. I'm Chip Kleinexel, host of Resilient Edge, the Smart Executives Guide to Implementing and Sustaining Change. Paid and presented by Deloitte, available now wherever you listen to podcasts. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. This is the TMS Podcast. from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Hello, I'm Daniel Norcross. Welcome to the TMS podcast where we hear from England head coach Brendan McCullum. I'm alongside Stephen Finn and Stefan Shemult as we discuss his take on this summer and what his thoughts are as the ashes down under gets ever closer. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 live. There was lots to be enthusiastic about throughout the summer.

I thought the Indian Test series was unbelievable to be a part of. Both teams gave as good as. they got the cricket was fabulous it was superbly supported you know all around England but also around the world and I thought you know it was a series which showed that test cricket means so much to a lot of a lot of people so

that was great to be a part of it wasn't it was unfortunate we didn't quite get across the line and we had our opportunities but sometimes you don't always get where you want you played basically four fifths of that game with ten men and came out losing my six run so you know at the end of the series maybe

actually accurately reflected where the two teams were at because they both played magnificent cricket for 25 days. You bowled more overs this summer than an England team has bowled in over 60 years. That in part it seems to be because of these pitches that we're playing on become increasingly difficult to get sides out

and it also means you probably need quite a large coterie of fast bowlers if it's going to keep on being like this for the next few years. Yeah, certainly not for a love of fielding that we're staying out there, that's for sure. a final test to that but you know I thought the pitchers unfortunately

in some some grounds they were probably a touch docile for what we were anticipating but you know it was a hot summer and maybe the amount of cricket which has been played on these pitches makes it difficult to keep the life in him however you know we had

our opportunities throughout that series and we came within one blow of winning against a very good Indian side who were very well resourced and very talented and well led of beating them three once. So it was close but no cigar but from our point of view

there's lots of bankable positives to take from that series and it should have us cherry right for our next assignment obviously that we've got a white ball series down in New Zealand which we'll try and we'll try and obviously bring a little, we'll utilise some

of the players who are going to be in that as a bit of preparation as well leading into the ashes and then we've got the lions heading down advanced party heading down to Australia too which we'll try and make sure we get plenty of loading into the guys across that program before then we hit Perth and start getting ourselves ready for our warm-up game against the Lions

and then into that first test match and that's the one warm-up game you'd be playing but it'll be against high-quality opposition that you can guarantee is going to be high quality yeah that's right you can guarantee it and I think if there was ever a lot's made of preparation I always find and retrospectively a lot's made of preparation.

But I think if we look at the test side since I came on board, and I don't have the exact answers of what makes the perfect preparation, but I don't think anyone does. If it came down to that and someone said, if you follow this script, you will win 5-0, then we'll do it. And it could come from anywhere, but no one has that. So you've got to have conviction in what you believe in. And I'm pretty sure since we came in,

we've won every away first test match of each series and we're following exactly the same preparation. It doesn't guarantee a success but it's how we go about things and it's going to be the same familiar program and approach leading into that first test that we've had previous. What have you learnt in the round

and I don't just been about the test side because you've just come into being the whiteboard coach as well from the champion's trophy just before that and onwards. What do you reckon you've learned over this summer about the players in the wider England set up? Look, I'll take a back step. So when I first came into the job in England cricket, I knew that from sitting on the outside,

you could see that the talent within this country is significant. The love of the game within this country is significant. The resource is very good. And the opportunity was immense. Where was the sticking points? Where was the areas which, if you're going to take over a role like this, So if you're going to try and assist these guys to get to where they want to get to,

what do you need to do to be able to make a point of difference and hopefully accelerate the process? And for me, it's about, and this might not necessarily go down that well in this room, but it's trying to block out some of the noise. The noise is great because the noise means that people care, right? I mean, we're walking into first press conference, and I'm used to coming from New Zealand where there's like three journalists, right? and then you walk in there at first day of Lords and I think there's about 65 you lot

and I was like all right this is a bit different but what an opportunity what an opportunity to knowing that the forum and the base to be able to keep growing this game and to hopefully be able to succeed what we want on this level is going to reach so many people so for us it's a matter of trying

to manage that noise so that when you cross the line it doesn't affect you it doesn't you don't carry anything with you and that's in good days and bad It's staying really level, it's staying really present. It's trying to create a camaraderie within the group and it's trying to free up these guys so that they're not paralysed by a fear of failure or a fascination on technique, which I think has been quite prevalent throughout English cricket. I'm a firm believer that technique allows you to enter a game, but it's how you play.

It's the ability to play the game, to be able to play the man, to play the situation, to adapt your tactics in any given day to be able to then get the outcome you want. not if you have your front arm in the perfect position or if you have your elbow at the right spot. I think there's an over fascination with technique and all that does as well is create noise and it creates warped thinking within our mind which takes away our ability to make good decisions in the moment and focus on one needs to be done. So there's so many opportunities there and the other one has just been able to connect these guys and to understand that you have one opportunity in your life and where you're at in your career right now

to make it as much fun and the most success you can out of the time that you have playing for your country because it does pass you by and when it does you wish that you enjoyed it a lot more than what you did if you don't stop to smell the roses and enjoy it right throughout and also the relationships that you make throughout

these guys in 20 years time they'll be mates they'll be great mates and you're trying to force that camaraderie together the wins, the losses, the runs, the wickets, they all go in time, but it's the relationships that you've made and the people you've met and the friendships that you create, which will last long after that.

And that, to me, is significant of what you're trying to create in the environment that you are, and all of this is geared towards, hopefully, allowing the talent that sits with in English cricket to flourish rather than be stymied. When you talk about blocking out the noise,

Do you think the people outside the England dressing room, be that either that was in the media or the people who turn up and watch or watch on the TV, do you think we get it? Do you think we understand what you're trying to do? Is that even possible for anyone who's not in the dressing room to fully understand what you guys are trying to do and trying to achieve and trying to play and all those things that you've just described? Yeah, I think everyone gets it. I think ultimately everyone wants the England team to be successful, right?

There's just different ways of being able to, there's different styles that you operate with which some people will like and some people won't like and you can't worry about that. You can't adapt your game to what people are saying or what people are thinking about. You have to have a belief in what you want and you use the resource that's around you to be able to keep nipping and tucking to keep improving and performing to the level that you want to. And ultimately we know we're judged on our results, right? We live and we die by our results and we get that. But having the hang up on that is not helpful when you cross the line. It's the ability to remove that from the pitcher and be able to focus on how do I deal with the process,

how do I play this ball, how do I transfer pressure, how do I absorb pressure, how do I manipulate this situation in a game that's going to give my team the best chance of success. And that's our coaching style. That's what we try and do. we're as determined and as competitive as anyone else out there and we want success as much as anyone else

but you can want success and then success and our haste to want that success can stop our ability to actually get it so from our point of view we take it as a given we're competitive we take it as a given that we want to win and we focus on the process of what we're trying to achieve and try and get these guys to be totally present feel 10 foot tall and bulletproof when they walk out to play and to make decisions which will hopefully give us the greatest chance to succeed

Finney you played in a side that was very intense that sort of 2010 to 2013 side when you hear Brendan talking like this about the environment that's being fostered now what does that make you feel? I think that's one of the frustrations as a former player who knows what it feels like to play for England is the frustration how that the mindset that these guys try and find can be misconstrued as not caring or flipping

and as someone who knows a number of the team, I know Brendan, and I know how much they want to win when trying to free people up and make people feel 10 foot tall is a really difficult thing with the noise and the pressure that people have inside their own minds and I think that's what these guys do really well is they identify characters and as we've been doing the report cards we're there looking at numbers and you know why his average and his runs per over and stuff like this but it's characters

that you want brenden i presume when you're when you're picking a team when you're picking a squad you're not just looking at cold hard numbers you're looking at people who want to puff their chest out and be that person in the moment and when i look at this test team and i look forward to australia what i was kind of trying to explain earlier is i see this is england's best opportunity in 15 years to win the ashes away because of those characters that we have in the 15 16 17 man squad that is going to go down there well look you've just started this conversation about the ashes so i feel entitled to continue it now we've been trying not to talk about the ashes all summer because india is a massive massive series it's been completed now

notwithstanding there's a whiteboard tour how excited are you for us you played in australia before you've gone up against Australians um you've you've won some you've lost some you've lost some but you know how much this means to the players and to the public. How exciting is that as a prospect for you? Yeah, I'm also married to Australians, so I know how competitive they are, right? Look, it's just 100% it's time to get it on when it comes to the ashes, right? It's time to now, you know, we've been very deliberate about making sure when it comes to test cricket that we focus on the job at hand in each series that we've come into.

but for us now our next series and test cricket is the ashes and bring it on, it's going to be great. The hype, the intensity, everything about it is our boys are ready to embrace and to enjoy what comes with it and that includes the pressure that comes with it and the scrutiny that comes with it. What do you need to do to...

It's a really facile question in one way. What do you need to do to win? But you've got so much experience of playing against them and you've seen teams succeed and fail. What sort of characterises there's the teams that do succeed out there. Well, look, I think it goes back to Finney's point. I think character is really important.

If you look at what we've done over the last couple of years and how we've tried to set up this test side, it's kind of geared towards the task which is at hand. We knew that to go to Australia, you need a cartel of fast bowlers, and you need plenty of them. You need to be able to test them with good ES speed, good bounce and obviously good skill

Nathan Lyons has been an unbelievable spinner down there I'm not saying Shai Bashar is Nathan Lyon but he has attributes he's tall he gets bounce he's able to spin the ball and if you look at his statistics it may not jump off the page but if you look at when he's had to bowl us to a test win or the roles that he's played in unfavourable conditions

he's been very good he's going to benefit from bowling on those pitches down there And then if you look at our batting line-up, there's reasons why we persist with guys over a long period of time. Because, A, there's complementary skills throughout that top seven, throughout our batting group. It's complementary skills, these abilities to put oppositions under pressure. And there's now guys who are three or four years into their test careers, three or four years or three years into this environment's way of thinking, are going to head down to Australia and try and take on what is a brilliant fast bowling.

and offspinner and Nathan Lyon group. So, and we've also got a counterattacking wickkeeper batsman at seven. Adam Gilchrist was a great, he did pretty well in Australia, and then we've got a captain who's going to lead from the front and he's going to throw everything at it, he's going to bow 88 mile an hour and he's going to try and hit the ball out of the park or he's going to try and sort of be able to throttle back when the time needs before powering up again.

So from our point of view, it guarantees us nothing, But we go there with our plan that we had set up two years ago, absolutely cherry right, and it will give us every opportunity. When you come to pick the squad, whatever is in a week's time or whatever, it's going to be a pretty short meeting? Yeah, yeah. With what is there to decide, if anything? Probably just the second spinner.

We probably just need to have a bit of communication around that, work out exactly what their role is, where we see where there may be an opportunity, it may only be in one test match or if something was to happen to show Boucher, then what are our options? So we need to just finesse that a little bit. But outside of that, I'd say,

we're pretty certain of what we want. Six seamers? Maybe seven. Well, you've got the lines down there as well, haven't you? So there's an opportunity to have more people around? Yeah, there is. And also be able to get some game time into some of them too.

It is a long time this tour. There's a lot of breaks in between the test matches as well, which we're going to have to manage as best we can and make sure the guys are able to dip in and dip out of the intensity and the spotlight and still be able to enjoy themselves and

come back and be ready to go. So there's lots to look forward to. There's lots of preparation which has gone into it. And now it's time to get it on. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space, and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. America is changing, and so is the world.

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the global story. Every weekday will bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. The throttling up and throttling down is a phrase that I like first and foremost, but is that something that you focused on a bit more this summer than in previous summers, or is that unfair to say?

No, I think it's fair to say. I think if we look at where we were when we took over, what, one win in 17 test matches and there was various reasons for that. But the reason that I was employed was to try and reinvigorate some oomph into the setup. And one of those was to utilise the skill set of players that we have here in England. ability to be able to put oppositions under pressure with the style they've got. We push that to the very eighth degree, but you need to do that sometimes because you don't know where the line is until you push it, and occasionally we've got it wrong, and that's just that's life, right? You don't know the exact point where that is, but we never talk about

scoring fast. We never talk about sort of trying to hit sixes and things like that. We talk about absorbing pressure, transferring pressure, identifying the moments where you can transfer pressure, and then being courageous enough to pull the trigger on that. And I think that was slightly misconstrued that we just swing from the hip and sort of go and play a bit of golf and have a few bears. I mean, there's so many people within English cricket

who have, they worked unbelievably hard to give us every opportunity to be able to give these guys the best amount of resource, and the best environment we possibly can to go out there and perform. And I feel that was a slight simplification of how we go about things. You know, I think from our point of view,

I think we've got a squad of players now who have been around this group for a long period of time and that slight adjustment of throttling down and powering up is quite powerful because you're not going to be able to be on the hammer the whole time. You're going to have to be times where the opposition who are very good are going to put you under the pump.

you've got to work out is hanging in the right option or is trying to transfer in that moment the right option because everyone will say it's very nice to nick the ball down the shoot on fifth stump on a green seamer and go great you've got a good ball you're out for 10 but that's that's no better than trying to put pressure on the opposition and stop them bowling on off stump which is the danger ball at least then that way you're potentially getting them if you put them under pressure their margin for era becomes a lot less, a lot greater, sorry. So, you know, that's the sort of mindset that we're trying to talk about and rip up the script of this fascination with technique and just start to, you know, what we believe in is try and get these guys

to be totally present in the moment, make good decisions, and be brave enough to put pressure back on the opposition when you need to. And do you feel, I mean, it's felt a bit like it up here. I mean, somebody, was it, Michael Vaughn said, it's Basball with brains, he said a couple of times this year and it has felt watching it there has been a slight shift in tempo sometimes

and adaptation in match situations have you been pleased by what you've seen over the course of this summer especially when you're going 25 days against India yeah I've been really pleased with a lot of it there's a couple of times where I thought we we got too safe to be honest I thought we almost got the throttling down

a little bit wrong I thought we needed to be a touch braver in a couple of those situations and there was a couple of times we may have maybe taken it too far in times which didn't need as much so you're never going to get it right 100% of the time you are going to make mistakes but it's having the courage to make the mistake

and then go back out there again and have another go at it and that's the mentality that we try and operate within the dressing room and we hope that that's what gives us our greatest chance success again there is zero guarantees but you've got to have belief in something and you've got to have conviction in your methods and that's our coaching style

and that's the way that we try and run this team and if you look at, I mean as we've made those adaptions it's come because we've got the same group of batters that have had time to mature and nurture and understand and develop and grow if you're flipping in and flipping out

and constantly trying to find the answer from someone who might have got 100 last week in a county game or, you know, and you replace something, you're literally guessing and you're not going to be able to achieve what you want over a long period of time if you're flippant with your selections like that, which is why we have persisted with the group that we have for as long as we have. And I think that that level of maturity and that growth is starting to get there. With that, sorry, to come in a second step up, but it just makes me think there was an honest scrutiny on Jacob Bethel this summer and that he didn't play a lot of.

cricket, but he was around the group. Is that sort of the thinking there? Because what you're describing is a kind of a batting unit that understands how it plays. Is part of the idea here that Jacob Bethel, because he could be used at any moment, could be for any reason whether he's selected out of someone else or whether there's

an injury, needs to come into a unit that understands what it's doing, almost, you know, like a scrum pack, almost. Yeah, and you know, Kim, you're not going to always get it right. We felt that that was the right thing to do at the time

and hope that the environment and the ability to get him up to speed from being around the group if he was required in that series would give us the best chance for Beth to be able to go out there and have a significant contribution coming in where he did

was probably a little bit more difficult because he was probably thinking he might come in a bit higher in the order but it's hard because he county cricket is a very different game to test cricket and it doesn't mean that I'm not trying to be derogatory to county cricket it's just if we're running a county side it would look very different to the side that we're running now the players that you pick

would be very different to the players that you have in the test side because it is a different game played on different wickets it's played continuously with a relentless schedule so it's impossible to have fast bowlers bowling all the time spinners are hardly used at certain stages of county cricket season batters that sort of aren't batters who are really good at on the back foot which is a requirement at test cricket they don't get past five in county cricket because they get the they get the front foot shin from from something that's nibbled back so it's a very different

game and it's you're always trying to work out what's the right way you know who's going to be able to transfer from that style of cricket to this style of cricket and that's probably the gap we've got to work out how to bridge that gap as well so that it isn't such an element of guesswork there's actually ideally you'd you'd be able to go straight from county straight in the test cricket and garret and if you were the leaning run scoring county cricket leading wicket taker then you'd be the best bowler in test cricket and in the England side and you'd be you'd score the most manor runs it doesn't work like that so we've got to find a way to try and bridge that gap as well two questions I wanted to ask

How's Ben Stokes? He's spoken to him. Yep, spoken to him. He's going well. He's progressing well. So is Mark Wood. So, I know, those guys are both huge for us, particularly Stokesy. I thought the India series was his best series since I've come on board with him, I feel. I think he bowled faster than we've ever seen. He bowled unbelievable wicket-taking balls. His control was immense.

His batting, I felt, was almost at that. he wasn't far away I know he got 100 but I think he fought himself a little bit through that 100 I think his natural tempo is slightly higher than that as well and I think he'll completely let go

throughout this Aussie series he could have a booming series down in Australia and I thought his captain's series brilliant and his connectivity with the group and the way he leads was outstanding so I thought it's the best I've seen him

I know how much he wants this sashes my job would be to just finesse that a little bit at times to make sure he gets through to make sure he gets through but you know sometimes we want stuff too much right so we've got to it's one thing to have that desire for it but our haste to want to to succeed can often be the very thing which stops us from succeeding so we've just got to make sure we manage that appropriately and there's also some unbelievable players in the group he doesn't have to do it all himself.

So, you know, he's going to be huge and he's super excited about what's coming. And Mark Wood is certainly progressing as well, and we think that he'll be cheery right for that assignment too. And just in terms of the New Zealand series, there's almost a bit of extended preparation into the ashes, might we see some players that aren't necessarily around the white ball group ordinarily in that maybe one-day squad, just to make, and I'm thinking Zach Crawley, maybe Holly Pope, just to be there to be batting, or is that not really the way you're thinking. No, we're working

through that a little bit. We haven't finalised that yet, but there's certainly something that we could do. If we have to take a slightly extended, slightly wider squad then that's fine. I think throughout the time, we've saved a whole lot of money from having these smaller squads, but that's

not the objective. The objective is to reduce the amount of squads so that you get that easier connectivity amongst your group, amongst smaller people and smaller support staffs as well. But for the series, may be that, you know, with what's coming after, that we try and use in similar conditions to what we're going to have in the ashes with that series to New Zealand, we may well

introduce a couple of those guys and use the Lions campaign as well to get some of the other guys who aren't in that up to speed. So we'll have no complaints when we get down there. We should be good to go. Sometimes, you know, you make these plans and they fall, they fall sort of short of where you want them. But we made this plan out. have last a couple of years and we're almost spot on we want to be

now it comes down of how we handle it all when we get there Brendan, thank you ever so much for coming in I can actually I can tell the excitement

in your voice and it's kind of making me extremely excited I can almost hear the excitement of Ben Stokes as well the way you're describing this

when he said he really wants this I mean we all really want it it's going to be so exciting every ball of every test match on BBC Test match special go well, good luck

And hopefully see you in Australia. Thanks for joining us today. Cheers. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. The Women's Football Weekly has found a new home. It's a very own feed. We've called it, unsurprisingly, BBC Women's Football Weekly. We'll continue to bring you the latest news, insights and analysis from across the women's game.

They're throwing some big money around. I want to see how they line up, how everyone fits in. Episodes will be available every Tuesday as ever, alongside special. official, unfiltered player interviews from the biggest names in WSL and beyond. To make sure you never miss an episode, just search for BBC Women's Football Weekly and hit subscribe once you get there. America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval.

It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. and this is the global story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.