Following Brendon McCullum's return to the UK ahead of the international summer, Mark Butcher has said that winning Test matches will decide whether the England head coach stays in position or is "gone by the end of the summer".
Mark Butcher on what to expect from McCullum and Bazball this summer
After returning home to New Zealand following the T20 World Cup earlier this year, McCullum was back in England earlier this week, with the first Test match since the winter Ashes defeat just a week away. Earlier this week, the ECB released an in-depth interview with McCullum, in the first public comments the head coach has made since the board detailed the results of their Ashes post-mortem. In those findings, which were released two months ago, McCullum kept his job alongside Ben Stokes. ECB chief executive Richard Gould said McCullum would be able to "adapt and evolve" his leadership, following criticism of his management of the side during the Ashes.
Speaking on Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Butcher dismissed the idea that McCullum would drastically change his coaching philosophy after the winter humbling. "He will live and die by being exactly the same guy he was when they hired him and exactly the same guy that he is now," said Butcher. "Hoping that a little bit more precision in terms of the way that his team goes out there and plays will allow him to continue to be the same guy that he was at the beginning.
"It’s that bit, and that bit only, not the extra PR exercises and all the rest of it that people want to see him doing, that will either save him, or see him gone by the end of the summer."
'The team could have been plastered for two months if we had won the Ashes'
McCullum's job came under pressure during the Ashes series for both on-field and off-field missteps. Under-fire was their low-key preparation for the series, batting approach, small-scale backroom staff and selection policies. In addition, the public perception of the side was damaged by their mid-series break in Noosa following their loss in the second Test match, where they were photographed drinking at local bars, as well as the revelation of Harry Brook's altercation with a bouncer in New Zealand in the white-ball series before the Ashes.
While England addressed the off-field criticisms by self-enforcing a curfew during the T20 World Cup, and some changes have been made by beefing up their coaching staff, McCullum dismissed the idea that a wholesale change of approach was needed in his second act.
Speaking in his ECB interview, McCullum said: "I firmly believe that positive and aggressive cricket and smart cricket can absolutely exist together... If there's one area we need to improve, it's understanding when games are on the line, what's needed at this point in time? And being able to adapt to that, to fluidly manoeuvre what's required, and do things in a way which sharpens our ability to close games out."
On Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast, Butcher emphasised that England's public perception would be shaped by results, rather than a sweeping change in their approach on the field.
"I keep hearing people say that the team needs to reconnect with the public, it really doesn’t," said Butcher. "What the team needs to do is play Test match cricket of the type that will – A, win them games and B, reflect the quality of the players they have to choose from. And if you do all of those things, you will look after the relationship between the team and the public, and overcome all of the PR disasters of the last six weeks.
"One thing that is incredibly important, and was true when I was playing, was true in the era before mine, was true in any era since then, is that you can only win the media, PR, public approval, if you win. The end. You can do whatever, you could have gone to Noosa seven times if we had won the first two Test matches and no one would have batted an eyelid. The team could have been absolutely plastered for two months if we had won the Ashes, and nobody would have batted an eyelid. So the only thing you have to do is win.
"...If McCullum had changed to the point where he was going to spend all his time appeasing the written media, the spoken media, the televised media, the fans or whatever it was, then he would have come back sooner. But that’s not Baz."
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