After T20I series loss Brendon McCullum wants England batters to be relentless against spinners | Cricket News

England’s head coach Brendon McCullum has called on his players to be relentless when facing the spinners after losing the T20I series 4-1 to India. In what promised to be a closely-fought series before it began, world champions India walked away with a dominating scoreline with their spinners led Varun Chakaravarthy calling the shots right through the series.
On conditions which had a good balance between bat and ball, England’s batting unit was time and again rattled the Indian spinners with middle-order batsman Harry Brook enduring a series to forget. Although England batsmen tried to be on the offensive, their tentativeness was there to see as Varun walked away with Man of the Series trophy for his 14 wickets at an average of 9.85.
“At times, we’ve been a touch tentative,” McCullum said. “We want to keep trying to apply pressure. Particularly when they’ve got such a good batting lineup, you don’t really have a time where you can just take time out of the game. Four or five years ago in T20 cricket it was like that, and I think we’ve seen it evolve so quickly that there is no dead time now.”
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England’s trouble against spin is nothing new. And after the first match, Brook even cited the fog in Kolkata as one of the primary challenges in picking the Indian spinners. “I think our guys are really good players of spin. We’ve probably not been at our best against them but credit goes to Chakaravarthy and (Ravi) Bishnoi as well. I know the scoreline reads 4-1 and it’s disappointing to lose the series but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I think we’ve seen a pretty clear gameplan of how we want to play the game.”
Now both teams move on to the ODI leg which begins in Nagpur. With these three ODIs being the dress rehearsal to the Champions Trophy to follow in Pakan, McCullum said England are set to include seamer Saqib Mahmood for the opening match on Thursday. Despite picking up three wickets in his first over in the Pune T20I, he was benched for the last match at Mumbai. “Saqi was outstanding in the fourth T20 and he’ll play in the first ODI as well,” said McCullum. “We wanted Woody to charge in on this Mumbai surface and try to double down on our mantra and our philosophy.”
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