Brendon McCullum says England will ‘go harder’ on Bazball tactics at Lord’s in second Test

England coach Brendon McCullum insists his team’s performance in the Ashes opener at Edgbaston was a total vindication of Bazball despite the agonising two-wicket defeat that leaves them 1-0 down in the series heading into next week’s second Test at Lord’s.

A bullish McCullum even suggested his players would go even harder next time against an Australian team who were clearly rattled by England’s aggressive approach before they burgled a narrow victory at the death in a Test for the ages at Birmingham.

Likening the opening exchanges of this series to a heavyweight boxing match, McCullum, whose team had the Australians on the ropes for much of the five days at Edgbaston without landing a knockout blow, said: “We want to keep getting up and throwing punches as a team.

“I’m really proud of the way that the guys played. Obviously, you’d rather have won the game – that’s just the nature sport – but I thought the way we played, I think it’s validated our style of play as well.

“If we’d have got a little bit of the rub of the green then we might have been on the other side of it, but I’m sure we’ll go to Lord’s with a lot of confidence.

“We firmly believe, the skipper and I, that this gives us our greatest chance and I would be very surprised if there were too many people who watched this game over the last five days who disagree with how we go about playing.”

On Australia’s defensive approach, including the decision by captain Pat Cummins to put men on the boundary in the very first over on day one to try and slow England’s scoring rate, McCullum said: “I guess I had a bit of an inkling they might try and put some sweepers out, and it’s hard to argue because they won the Test match, right?

“I’m sure they’ll stick solid to that strategy all the way through, which I think’s great because we’ll go a little harder.

“I think it makes for a really entertaining next few Test matches.”

Australia’s incredible victory came when Cummins finally freed himself of his defensive mindset and chanced his arm with the bat at the end of an epic run chase that saw his team eight wickets down with 54 runs still needed for victory.

Against the odds, it came off. But there were no regrets from McCullum about captain Ben Stokes’ decision to declare England’s first innings on 393 for eight on day one despite the fact Joe Root was batting beautifully on 118 not out.

1st Test player ratings

England:

• Zak Crawley 7
• Ben Duckett 4
• Ollie Pope 6
• Joe Root 8
• Harry Brook 6
• Ben Stokes 8
• Jonny Bairstow 6
• Moeen Ali 4
• Ollie Robinson 7
• Stuart Broad 7
• James Anderson 3

Australia:

• David Warner 3
• Usman Khawaja 9
• Marnus Labuschagne 1
• Steve Smith 2
• Travis Head 6
• Cameron Green 5
• Alex Carey 7
• Pat Cummins 6
• Nathan Lyon 8
• Scott Boland 3
• Josh Hazlewood 5

Read Chris Stocks’s full 1st Test player ratings here

“I think we always want to try and take the game forward,” he said. “And we want to try and seize opportunities where we think we can put opposition teams under pressure.

“There’s not too many opening batters that want to go out there and face 25 minutes of bowling, especially when the ball was starting to zip around. And we thought with Stuart Broad against Dave Warner as well, there might be an opportunity to land a blow there. They were able to get through it but for us, we’re happy with the total we got and we felt that was the most attacking option.”

Root’s performance at Edgbaston, out once for a total of 164 runs across the match, has seen him depose Australia’s Marnus Labuschagne as the world’s No 1-ranked Test batter. It’s the third time Root has topped the rankings and shows his value to England during this summer’s Ashes battle.

The thrilling denouement at Edgbaston also saw Sky record their highest-ever viewing figures for a cricket match, with 2.1 million tuning into the closing stages of the Test. The peak audience narrowly eclipsed the 2019 Ashes Test at Headingley, when Stokes led England to a nerve-jangling one-wicket win.

The BBC also revealed six million people tuned into their coverage of the Edgbaston Test across all platforms.