England head coach Brendon McCullum felt his players were over-trained for the Brisbane Test, which they lost by eight wickets, despite criticism of their decision to forgo a pink-ball warm-up ahead of the day/night game.
England barely managed to take Australia into the fourth innings of the Brisbane Test, with Ben Stokes and Will Jacks adding 96 runs for the seventh wicket in 221 deliveries. But they both fell within 17 balls of each other, with the visitors getting to 241 and handing Australia only 65 to win and take a 2-0 series lead.
When asked by Ricky Ponting on how they would handle the defeat as a group, McCullum said on 7Cricket, “I think we’ll probably have a beer tonight” before claiming he felt the team was “overprepared” leading into this Test.
Then on BBC Test Match Special, he explained: "We had five to 10 training sessions leading into this game. Sometimes there is a tendency to overdo things to make up for it. If anything, we trained too much."
He added: "As we all know in this game it is played in the top two inches. We all have to find a way that ensures that we feel prepared physically, technically and we are ready for the battle, but also to make sure we are fresh and make sure we can make those decisions in the heat of the games."
The assessment is likely to rankle with those of England's critics who questioned England's build-up to the Gabba Test. In particular, their decision to hold their first-choice players back from playing against a Prime Minister's XI at Canberra was heavily scrutinised, with Michael Vaughan saying it would be "amateurish" if they did so. While the pitch conditions and standard of the attack differed between the two games, England were exposed once again in a day/night Test - they have won just two and lost six of the eight they have played - and lost 11 of their 20 wickets in the two night sessions in which they batted, as well as dropping several chances under the lights.
Joe Root’s first Test hundred Down Under and Zak Crawley’s 76 in the first innings were the only real positives for England from the first innings. The duo added 117 runs together for the third wicket after Mitchell Starc had reduced them to 5-2 by just the third over. Harry Brook and Jofra Archer were the only other batters to score over 20 runs as England got to 334.
All of Australia’s batters then scored in double digits to post 511 and take a strong 177-run first innings lead. England started their second essay strongly, but they went from 90-1 to 97-3 and then from 121-3 to 128-6. Stokes and Jacks’ rearguard action wasn’t enough as Australia overhauled the 65-run target in just 10 overs.
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England have 10 days to recuperate before the Adelaide Test starts on December 17.
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