Head coach Brendon McCullum believes England's recent ODI struggles stem from players being too hard on themselves following their early elimination from the 2025 Champions Trophy.
England became the first team to crash out from their group, following defeats to Australia and Afghanistan. While they failed to defend 351 in their first game, they fell short by eight runs in the run chase of 326 in the following game.
Following the twin losses, skipper Jos Buttler, who was appointed the captain following Eoin Morgan’s reign in June 2022, stepped down from his role. He was accompanied by McCullum in the press conference, with the former wicketkeeper breaking down the reasons for his side’s early elimination.
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“I think if we look at this series, this tournament, sorry to touch on this, we've had our opportunities in this tournament and we've played some okay cricket. We've had opportunities in both games which we could have won and maybe we're sitting here and we're talking about something slightly different.”
England’s ODI woes continue
The Champions Trophy ouster marked a worrying trend for the England team, who have managed to win just four ODIs since the start of the 2023 World Cup. The defending champions had won just three games in the tournament, against Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Pakistan.
In their last nine games, England have registered just one win and entered the Champions Trophy on the back of a 0-3 whitewash in India. McCullum, who took over as white-ball coach earlier this year, however, feels that the poor performances stem from the players being “too hard on themselves”.
McCullum: England's abilities are stifled by caring too much
“I genuinely think that we've got immense talent that sits within English cricket across all forms of the game,” he said. “It's our job to make sure that we get that talent in the right place and make sure we're making the right decisions around that. Probably the single greatest thing for us which I've felt I guess since jumping into the white-ball job is that these guys are too hard on themselves. They've got immense talent, they're just desperate to want to perform and it's actually stifled the ability of us to be able to get the performance involved because they care too much.
“They're just desperate to want to perform for England, want to do right by all those who support the team, all those who support them and until we get to that stage where we're able to still handle walking out there and playing without wearing defeat or wearing disappointment so heavily then we're always going to stifle ourselves.”
McCullum also spoke about the challenges that Rob Key, managing director of the ECB, will face going forward: “So that's the job over the next little while. I feel like we've got there to a degree with the Test stuff and hence we've been okay with results but I think if we can get that into this group of talented players in white ball cricket then we'll be able to see our best option and that's something that we'll be looking to try and do in the next little while.” he said.
“It'd be nice if we started half-decently tomorrow (against South Africa) and give ourselves a chance to feel what it's like when you play with a little less pressure on you.”
McCullum, who took over as England’s Test coach in June 2022, and has become the face of the transformation of the side, has overseen the team to 22 wins in 35 games in the format.
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