Brendon McCullum highlights differing requirements of Test and county cricket after latest curveball selection
Andrew Miller05-Sep-20240:35
Ollie Pope excited to see ‘massive’ Josh Hull debut for England
“So what was it, Baz, that first attracted you to the 6ft 7in left-arm fast bowler, Josh Hull?”It wasn’t quite phrased as per Mrs Merton to Debbie McGee, but Brendon McCullum’s answer to the inevitable pre-match query at the Kia Oval doubtless had the effect of making England’s rawest recruit feel like a multi-millionaire ahead of his Test debut against Sri Lanka.”Josh Hull? Six foot heaps, bowls left-arm, ranges in pace from 80 to 90 miles an hour. Swings it, not too dissimilar to the likes of Jimmy Anderson. He’s 20 years of age … good farming stock. It’s not a huge gamble, is it?”And, well, when you put it like that… no, I guess it isn’t.Related
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What it is, however, is perhaps the clearest indication yet of McCullum’s determination not to be bound by English convention, which in itself is saying something. For he’s not exactly been shy about parading his genre-busting methods over the past two-and-a-half years of Bazball, but in backing this latest hunch about Hull, he’s surely made his most left-field pick yet.”We hope he goes well, he might go there and take ten-for … we’ve got no idea, but it kind of doesn’t matter,” McCullum explained. “We see him as someone that’s worth investing in, and worth giving opportunities to. And whatever happens, we’ll wrap our arm around him, and make sure that he knows that he’s firmly in our sights for the future.”The optics are extraordinary, either way. Not least when you consider that the chief beneficiary of Hull’s selection could be another unusually tall 20-year-old in England’s ranks, who also boasted a mere ten first-class wickets when he first came to the attention of the selectors, and whose offspinners into the rough outside the right-hander’s off stump are likely to bite that little bit harder once Hull’s sizeable boots have pounded through the crease a few times.”The footmarks that he’s going to present as well for Shoaib Bashir will be interesting,” McCullum added. “It’ll give Bash a lot of excitement too. But again, I stress, if this isn’t this week, it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, he’s someone who is going to be able to provide us with another string to our bow, another weapon that is going to make us a more rounded side, that can challenge teams in various conditions.”And there we have it. A few imposing vital statistics, a sprinkling of positive vibes, and the recipe for Test success is there waiting to be grasped, notwithstanding Hull’s first-class haul for Leicestershire this season – two wickets at 182.50 – which might invoke some deeply offended harrumphing in the shires.And yet, of the five men to have claimed five-fors on debut since McCullum and Ben Stokes took control of the team, only Gus Atkinson came into the side with anything resembling expectation, and he then breezed through to England’s best newbie figures for more than 130 years. Bashir, meanwhile, had three five-fors in five Tests by the time he’d bowled England to victory at Trent Bridge in July. When this England team sets out to do things differently, it doesn’t go in for half-measures.Josh Hull’s rise this season has been meteoric•Getty Images”The talent we’ve introduced has exceeded expectations, if I’m being totally honest,” McCullum said. “You hope the guys go well early, but you’re not after that instant gratification when you pick them. If you’re doing that, then I think you’re guessing.”We look at these guys and we think they’re going to be good. It might take a bit of time, but they’re worth investing in. Zak Crawley was a good example of that a couple of years ago. Some of these other guys have come in have done it quicker than what I thought they would do, and that’s incredibly encouraging, and probably testament to the leadership of Stokesy and the leaders within the setup.”There’s something especially ironic, too, that Hull’s debut will be taking place at The Oval, the home of county cricket’s most storied champions, Surrey. In Atkinson and Jamie Smith, not to mention the current England captain, Ollie Pope, the club continues to churn out a glut of players who are integral to the current regime’s plans. And yet, Surrey’s dominance of the County Championship seems to be epitomised by players who no longer fit the brief.Take Rory Burns and Dom Sibley, for instance, who were briefly England’s bedrock under Chris Silverwood but who are now redolent of their strokeless summer of 2021, or Ben Foakes, whose peerless glovework cannot atone for limitations with the bat that England identified on their last tour of India, and which had previously been masked by his perfectly respectable first-class average of 38. Elsewhere in Surrey’s line-up, there’s Dan Worrall too, a soon-to-be-England-qualified seamer whose methods in home conditions, even at the age of 33, would doubtless have hoovered up countless Test wickets given half a chance … much as Chris Rushworth, or Sam Cook, or, yes, James Anderson might still expect to do.And yet, that’s not what England are looking for anymore. It probably came with a jolt of recognition, at Lord’s last week, when – in the absence of Mark Wood, and with Atkinson a notch below his slipperiest pace – England found themselves grinding to victory thanks to a hard-working fleet of four right-arm medium-pacers, all operating at speeds between 82 and 87mph, which is precisely the sort of line-up that caused the selectors to vow “never again” after the travails of the last Ashes tour.Matthew Potts has been left out of the XI as England sought a point of difference•Gareth Copley/Getty ImagesHence the cruel but unsentimental ditching of the luckless Matthew Potts, whose important two-wicket burst in the first innings at Lord’s could not disguise the fact that he was operating, albeit skilfully, at the limits of his potential. And if the selection instead of lanky and raw left-armer seems like an over-compensation, then it also feels like a truer reflection of England’s pre-season promise, around the time of Anderson’s axing, to start recruiting the weapons they will need to win in Australia in barely 12 months’ time.”We need to identify that county cricket and Test cricket are probably slightly different games,” McCullum said. “If we were picking a county side, it would look a little bit different to what it looks like on the Test side. Hence our understanding of what counties are doing, and the decisions that they make, they might not always line up with us, and that’s cool.”We don’t do stuff in spite of them, we completely understand they have a different job to do. We’re bringing some of these guys who we see as rough diamonds with incredibly high ceilings, into an environment where we’re able to shape them, and give them the opportunities and hasten the process of them getting to the level that we think they can get at.”One subtle difference for Hull is that he will not be debuting under the direct tutelage of Stokes. Instead, he’ll be the first new cap of Pope’s interim reign, and therefore an added responsibility for a captain who is already feeling a bit of heat after his haul of 30 runs in his past four innings.McCullum, however, has no qualms about Pope’s competence for the role, citing his aggressive captaincy in England’s victory push on the fourth day at Lord’s, or his ability to bounce back to the form he showed against West Indies earlier this summer, with a century and two further fifties in the course of England’s 3-0 win.”It was only a couple of Tests ago, he was scoring runs and playing really well, right?” McCullum said. “No. 3 is a very difficult place to bat over here, he’s done a great job for us over the last couple of years in that position. He would have loved to have scored more runs since he’s taken over the captaincy, but you don’t always get what you wish for.”In my mind, it hasn’t affected his leadership, which is very important,” he added. “I think he’s grown a lot in two Tests too. His best session in charge was probably the last session of the [Lord’s] match where he became ultra-aggressive and put a lot of pressure on Sri Lanka with the fields that he set and the carrots that he dangled.”He’s been great. I’ve been totally impressed with how Popey has been able to handle the job so far. And that’s great because Stokesy is our leader, and ultimately you need to make sure that things don’t come crashing down if your leader’s not there for a series or two. It’s great credit to Stokesy that he’s put faith in Popey, and it’s great credit to Popey that he’s been able to stand up.”