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Brendon McCullum appointed as England Head Coach across all formats - The BazBall Saga continues in white-ball format too [Post Updated #141]

Will Jacks is doing pretty well currently. And he bowls canny offies. Buttler is there who can keep. Jacks domestic t20 SR is 160 something
For some guys you're using international Avg and SR and others BBL/PSL/ILt20/100 as exclusion criteria.
Why can't you be uniform?

The thing is all of the names I mentioned have the potential to outscore the ones playing right now.

Because Vince and Billings haven't played T20I's consistently or recently ? Cox has barely played international cricket.

You can use any stats for Jacks and it's not particularly great . SA20 - 28/136 , Hundred - 17/148.

He is not going to be picked for his bowling

Buttler won't be keeping anymore. This was confirmed by McCullum sometime back
 
Will Jacks is doing pretty well currently. And he bowls canny offies. Buttler is there who can keep. Jacks domestic t20 SR is 160 something
For some guys you're using international Avg and SR and others BBL/PSL/ILt20/100 as exclusion criteria.
Why can't you be uniform?

The thing is all of the names I mentioned have the potential to outscore the ones playing right now.
I don't understand the hype around Will Jacks. I think he is a fairly average player. By no means should be making the cut over Duckett and Salt. Even Crawley has more potential than him in white-ball.
 
I don't understand the hype around Will Jacks. I think he is a fairly average player. By no means should be making the cut over Duckett and Salt. Even Crawley has more potential than him in white-ball.
Yes Crawley is good as well.
Jacks is a pretty sweet timer of the ball in the mold of Roy. I don't think there's any hype around Jacks.
 

Injuries affected England's training time - McCullum​


England "backed guys off a little" because of injuries within the squad during their tour of India, says coach Brendon McCullum amid criticism of the team's preparation.

England were thrashed in the third one-day international on Wednesday meaning they ended the tour with seven defeats from eight matches across the ODIs and T20s.

Former captain Kevin Pietersen was among those to question the squad for not training before the second and third matches.

"Guys have come from a lot of cricket and keeping guys fresh is just as important, especially when you have injuries," said McCullum, whose attention now turns to the Champions Trophy next week in Pakistan.

England trained regularly during their 4-1 series defeat in the T20 series and did so before the first ODI.

Captain Jos Buttler referenced the travel between venues and the turnaround between matches when asked about his side's preparation. The three ODIs were played across seven days in three different cities.

Having made his initial comments during the TV commentary, Pietersen repeated his criticism on Thursday, saying "injuries are not stopping batters from batting against new bowlers and learning the art of spin".

"We've done lots of training," McCullum said. "We have had injuries in the camp so we've backed guys off a little bit to make sure we had a fit team.

"We have three training sessions in Pakistan [before the Champions Trophy starts].

"Hopefully in Pakistan we will have a fully fit squad to pick from and we look forward to a fresh challenge. It's been a tough lesson but hopefully it's been great preparation for the tournament."

England's latest fitness concern is over opener Ben Duckett, who injured his left groin in the third ODI. He will have a scan in the coming days before the Champions Trophy opener against Australia on 22 February in Lahore.

"He's had quite a lot of cricket over the last little while," said McCullum. "We will make that call, work out if he's going to be at risk, if he's in or out."

England have already lost all-rounder Jacob Bethell to a hamstring injury - he has been replaced by batter Tom Banton - while wicketkeeper Jamie Smith has not played since the third T20 on 28 January because of a calf injury.

McCullum said Smith will be fit to face Australia and played down concerns over Brydon Carse's toe issue, a cut to Jofra Archer's hand and a hamstring niggle affecting Jamie Overton.

"Jamie [Smith] would have been a risk [on Wednesday] but he will be available for the first game," McCullum said. "With Brydon, hopefully his toe has healed by then and he is available for the first game.

"Jamie Overton feels OK. He felt a little bit of tightness after the last game but he should be fine for the first one. Jofra should be available. That's good news."

 

McCullum does not rule out making outsider captain​


England coach Brendon McCullum has not ruled out appointing separate 50-over and T20 captains or bringing in a player from outside the current squad to do the role.

White-ball captain Jos Buttler resigned on Friday following England's exit from the Champions Trophy.

McCullum has said England will take stock of the situation in the coming weeks and then move to appoint a successor.

"If it's the same person, great, if it's two, that's great too," said McCullum, after England's campaign in Pakistan ended with a sorry seven-wicket defeat by South Africa.

"Give me a couple of weeks to work it out and get this thing back on track."

England's next white-ball series starts against West Indies on 29 May and the next ICC global event is the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in February and March 2026.

Batter Harry Brook appears the favourite to replace Buttler, given he was appointed vice-captain in January and led in Buttler's absence last year against Australia.

But appointing him would bring issues because Brook is a regular in the Test side.

He would either have to rest in some white-ball series, an approach England have regularly used, or take on a heavy workload around his Test commitments.

One solution would be splitting the white-ball captaincy but England have not had three captains since Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook and Stuart Broad held the roles in the early 2010s.

"It could definitely work, I don't see why not," England bowler Chris Woakes told the Test Match Special podcast.

"I feel we are in a stage in the cricket landscape where that can be the way forward.

"The formats are very different. Extremely different. 50-over is not just an extended T20 game. It's not, there's more games within the game which is closer to Test cricket and being able to do things for longer."

Liam Livingstone and Phil Salt have also both captained England in white-ball cricket over the past year. Another option would be to bring in a player who captains in domestic cricket but is not currently part of the side.

England wicketkeeper Sam Billings captained Oval Invincibles to victory in The Hundred last year but has not played for England since November 2022.

James Vince, whose last international was in March 2023, has had success as Hampshire captain while Sam Curran has captained in the Indian Premier League but was dropped by England last year.

Asked if England could bring in such a candidate, McCullum said: "Give us a couple of weeks to work it all out, sort of digest what's happened over the last month and a half, and then we will start to plot and plan our way forward from there."

 
Will be interesting to see how Wngland approaches batting against Bharat
 
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