McCullum’s ‘overprepared’ Ashes blunder may prove England’s Bazball epitaph
Brendon McCullum hated the term Bazball from the moment it entered the lexicon, deeming it to be reductive and perhaps knowing how it might be weaponised down the line.Now, 2-0 down in an away Ashes series that began with high hopes, it has become the butt of Australian jokes.But McCullum has not helped himself, either.After the gutting at the Gabba, his insistence that, if anything, England trained “too hard” before the day‑night match was like trying to put out a bin fire with petrol.It risks becoming his epitaph as England head coach if performances do not take an upturn.
Peter Moores was misquoted when he said he wanted to “look at the data” after England’s grim exit from the 2015 World Cup (“look at it later” were his words, having actually gone away from the numbers).There is no doubt that McCullum meant what he said on Sunday, however, repeating it in various ways to multiple outlets as he and Ben Stokes surveyed the wreckage.On one level you almost have to admire his commitment to the bit.As much as McCullum claims to block out external noise, he will have been all too aware of an England side that has become increasingly characterised as freewheeling and underprepared; unwilling to do the hard yards, unless that yardage relates to the fairways of the nearest golf course.The reality, as ever, is not so simple.
England play as much golf during their necessary down time as their opponents and they train just as much,Before the Gabba, they did more, five days to Australia’s three given their lack of exposure to the pink Kookaburra ball and the changes in visibility conditions,They could have gone to Canberra,But the sight of Sam Konstas lobbing up part-time pies to the Lions, while 12th men sat under blankets in the cold, showed a limit to the value of that game,Folks keep saying they should have booked the Waca before Perth Stadium – like India 12 months earlier – but renovations, the WBBL, and a Sheffield Shield match put paid to that.
McCullum’s point about “training too hard” was that those five days were his call – the moment he blinked in his belief that less is more.It meant a Test match’s worth of mental energy was spent before they even stepped out in the intensity of Australia’s stronghold.Although nets are a chance to iron out technique, they can also become a safety blanket; zero consequence stuff that simply keeps the reflexes sharp and the muscles moving.Schedules are tight such that pre‑series state games were not possible (and no guarantee, when you consider England played three before the whitewash in 2013-14).What is harder to square is the dismissal of domestic red-ball cricket as a worthwhile exercise more broadly, evidenced by Jacob Bethell’s wasted summer.
It is different, no question, and the selectors have been right to look beyond the numbers,But volume surely still counts for something,Only playing hardens cricketers for the many situations they walk out to face and it is here where England have so far fallen well short,It is not only with the bat – harrowing as some of the shot selection has been – but an attack that seems leaderless,None have shown the patience or discipline that the otherworldly Mitchell Starc and his support cast have delivered so far.
McCullum’s free-spirit outlook was liberating during its first 12 months, an excellent, well‑diagnosed remedy to shake off the torpor that came before.The frustration now comes in how it has seemingly failed to move beyond that point – the lack of an upgrade to the original software as results have tapered off to 14 wins and 14 defeats from their past 30 Tests.Perhaps it is no coincidence that England’s two most adaptable players, Stokes and Joe Root, are both into their 30s and started out in Andy Flower’s more hardline regime.When Stokes spoke about not having “weak men” in his dressing room, it referred to the resilience required to take on Australia.India, who won here in 2018-19 and 2020-21, had it by the bucketload.
Only Stokes knows who he thinks may be lacking in this department and it may well include one or two who have racked up the red-ball miles.But over the course of the first two Tests there are clearly players who are struggling to deliver in terms of output – high ceilings that have plenty of headroom, or hands that tighten up when the catch comes flying.Among them is Jamie Smith, a talent, no question, but one who is being mercilessly targeted on both edges of the bat and missed two key chances with the gloves.It probably does not help when your opposite number, Alex Carey, has just delivered such a virtuoso performance.Stuart Broad does regret saying the stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s in 2023 was all Carey would be remembered for but he has rubbished it regardless.
Going by McCullum’s words in the aftermath, England appear set to keep the faith with Smith in Adelaide.The hope – as is the case more broadly – is that a return to a more familiar Test setting triggers his best, with Perth’s trampoline surface and the unfamiliar day‑night format now out of the way.The alternative is to enact the plan stumbled across during the series win in New Zealand 12 months ago by moving Ollie Pope down to his more natural home as a busy middle‑order player, handing him the gloves, and selecting a new No 3.Bethell made some runs for the Lions over the weekend, or perhaps Will Jacks could perform a similar role to Moeen Ali in 2023.With Shoaib Bashir having gone wicketless for the Lions, a spin‑bowling option among the top seven would allow five seamers once more, with the spiky wicket-taking threat of Josh Tongue yet to be tried out.
Easing the bowling load for Stokes would also make him more effective,None of this is ideal, however, with Australia’s superior basics having shattered expectations and pushed the broader philosophy into the spotlight,
Anglo American drops plan to pay bosses millions in bonuses after $50bn Teck merger backlash
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Experiences raise questions about how telecoms firm treated small business owners, whose commission it cutWhen Adrian Howe drowned in August 2018, his family found some solace in the support of his longtime employer.The bond between the 58-year-old and Vodafone – the multinational mobile phone group for which Howe had worked for 20 years – was so tight that his funeral featured a wreath shaped like the company’s speech mark brand.Meanwhile, his widow was paid the equivalent of a death-in-service benefit, even though Howe had left the company weeks earlier. “I was reassured that Dad would be ‘reinstated’ back into Vodafone as if he had never actually left,” recalls daughter Kirsty-Anne Holmes. “He had [left] in order to open [Vodafone] stores as a franchise
Extracting hangovers from beer: inside Budweiser owner’s ‘nolo’ brewery in south Wales
A “de-alcoholisation facility” sounds like somewhere to check in after a boozy Christmas, but in the new annexe of a brewery in south Wales they are extracting hangovers from beer.With demand for no-alcohol and low-alcohol (“nolo”) beer taking off in the UK, the hi-tech brewing apparatus enables the plant at Magor, which produces more than 1bn pints of Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois a year, to make the increasingly popular teetotal versions too.The new unit is part of AB InBev’s global brewing empire and at its official opening on Friday, Brian Perkins, whose wider management responsibilities include running the drinks group’s UK arm, acknowledged that in the early days alcohol-free beer tasted “lousy”.Alcohol gives beer a sweet, warming, full-bodied taste, as well as affecting how other flavour compounds evaporate, resulting in its distinctive flavour. So removing it and being left with a drink that still tastes good has been a huge challenge for the industry
‘Zombie’ electricity projects in Britain face axe to ease quicker grid connections
Britain’s energy system operator is pulling the plug on hundreds of electricity generation projects to clear a huge backlog that is stopping “shovel-ready” schemes from connecting to the power grid.Developers will be told on Monday whether their plans will be dismissed by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) – or whether they will be prioritised to connect by either the end of the decade or 2035.More than half of the energy projects in the queue will be removed to make way for about £40bn-worth of schemes considered the most likely to help meet the government’s goal to build a virtually zero-carbon power system by 2030.The milestone marks the end of a two-year process to clear the gridlock of laggard “zombie” projects awaiting connection that meant many workable proposals were facing a 15-year wait to plug into Britain’s transmission lines.Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “We inherited a broken system where zombie projects were allowed to hold up grid connections for viable projects that will bring investment, jobs and economic growth
Keir Starmer to make Iceland boss Richard Walker a Labour peer
The formerly Conservative-supporting boss of the supermarket Iceland is to be made a Labour peer when the party appoints another 25 representatives to parliament’s upper house later this month.Keir Starmer will appoint Richard Walker to the House of Lords, the Guardian understands, the culmination of an unusual and rapid political transformation for someone named as a prospective Tory MP candidate a little over three years ago.It was only February this year when Iceland’s executive chair was rating Starmer’s government six out of 10, saying that Labour needed to focus on “inclusive growth and everyday growth” that could “trickle down in everyday people’s lives”.As a Labour peer, Walker will get the chance to push for policies close to his heart including closer relations with the EU and also for a more positive message on the economy.He took over the leadership of Iceland in 2023 after his father, Malcolm Walker, stepped down from the frozen foods chain he had founded in 1973
Bill Kingdom obituary
My husband, Bill Kingdom, who has died aged 69, was a global leader in water supply and sanitation. He worked for 20 years with the World Bank, based in Washington DC from 1999 to 2019, where he led urban and rural water supply and sanitation projects. He developed innovative financial and governance frameworks in south and east Asia, southern Africa, and the Middle East. His work provided access to clean and affordable water for some of the poorest people in the world.Bill’s early career was with Mott MacDonald, the engineering consultants based in Cambridge, from 1978 to 1986
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