“That’s life,” McCullum told Pak Gazette after England’s nine-wicket defeat. “We obviously blew the chance to win the series. We did some good things throughout and in the end we came away disappointed, but also very complimentary about how Pakistan played. But we know within ourselves that we have had the opportunity to have been better than that. and we’re a little disappointed about that.
“You have to give credit to Pakistan, the way those two spinners bowled was magnificent,” McCullum said, after Noman and Sajid combined to bowl out England for 112 in their second innings in Rawalpindi.
“I thought they varied the pace beautifully. Noman from one end, taking the pace most of the time with the occasional fast one, and Sajid turning it around and picking up the pace with the occasional slow one. I thought it was a great bowling partnership. “And unfortunately, our guys couldn’t handle the pressure.”
When asked if he was comfortable with the extreme measures Pakistan had taken to bring its spinners into the series, including the seemingly unprecedented reuse of the first Test ground in Multan and the raking of the Rawalpindi surface to exacerbate the supply of shifts, McCullum said he welcomed the initiative they had shown.
“To be honest, I like it,” he said. “They were brave enough to make decisions about their personnel and they were brave enough to make decisions about the surfaces they wanted to play on.
“When teams come to England, ideally we play on the surfaces we are most used to, which allows our strengths to really flourish and perhaps also disguises some of the weaknesses, which each team naturally has.
“I’m a little surprised that it took Pakistan this long. Because when you go to Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, the ball is always going to turn. What we had here a couple of years ago, or in that first Test match, where “It was pretty flat, it was a different challenge. It will be interesting to see in the coming years if they persist with this type of service, but there are certainly no excuses from our point of view and we came second.”
While remaining magnanimous, McCullum acknowledged that the series loss would increase scrutiny on his team. Ollie Pope and Zak Crawley were notably short of answers in the most extreme conditions, while Brook managed a top score of 26 in his last four innings of the tour, having amassed four centuries and fifties in his previous six in Pakistan.
“It’s pretty much the same batting group that came here two years ago and were outstanding in these conditions, and it’s the same batting group that scored 800 in the first Test match,” McCullum said. “As conditions changed, we were presented with different challenges and we weren’t able to adapt to those challenges. And that’s a missed opportunity.
“I have no doubt, and the captain has no doubt, that our batting group that we have had together for the best part of 18 months is the best we have,” he added. “We have a lot of confidence, we just have to make sure we continue to allow the guys to develop and continue to become the players they want to be, and we will benefit from that.”
The focus will also fall on England’s spinners, particularly Shoaib Bashir and Jack Leach, whose direct counterparts Sajid and Noman exploited the conditions much more successfully in the last two Tests. Bashir, whose selection for the tour of India had been based on his natural attributes rather than any proven record in first-class cricket, has now bowled more overs in Tests in 2024 than any other player, but his nine-wicket haul at 49.66 pales in comparison to Sajid’s 19 at 21.10.
“[Sajid and Noman] “They were brilliant in the way they bowled together and challenged in different methods with the paces they used,” McCullum said. “Could we have been better? Yes, of course, right? Every time you lose a test or lose a series, you have to have that reflection period. And we will do that and say, well, the next time we are presented with similar conditions To this one, how will we respond? What do we need to do? Do we need to vary our pace more? Do we need to adjust our tactics more? That’s natural, right? There’s no difference when a hitter comes out.
“You always try to improve, but you have to be very careful not to look for perfection, because it doesn’t exist in an inconsistent game. The game we play will come with periods where it won’t be like that.” It goes the way you want, but you still have to stand firm.
“We’ll face spin conditions at some point in the future, and we hope that some of the lessons, good and bad, that we’ve had throughout this series, will give us a little more foundation to be successful.”
Andrew Miller is UK editor for Pak Gazette. @miller_cricket
