In the new issue of Wisden Cricket Monthly, out October 31, Jo Harman delivers an in-depth profile of Brendon McCullum, exploring how the New Zealander’s experiences across his extraordinary career are now shaping English cricket.

"Brendon’s attitude brought a breath of fresh air which worked in a short space of time, simply because things previous to that were so bad, they’d almost hit rock bottom,” says Eoin Morgan of his friend and former teammate’s impact as England Test coach. "It made his period of transition almost immediate because not only was he the right person for the job, but he picked the right type of players to execute the template of how he wanted them to play.”

Elsewhere, we review the 2024 county season across 26 pages which include Cameron Ponsonby on how Surrey put the building blocks in place to achieve their historic three peat, Sam Dalling on Gloucestershire’s Blast triumph, Toby Radford on the intriguing dominance of left-handed batters, and Katya Witney on an unsettling final summer for the women’s regional set-up. Meanwhile, John Stern takes us back to 1999, the final year of the two-division Championship, before considering what the future holds for domestic red-ball cricket.

We have Rob Smyth on Test cricket’s most spectacular starts in the wake of Kamindu Mendis’ Bradman-esque streak, Phil Walker reveals the secrets of a ghostwriter, Bumble tells Mel Farrell the Blast isn’t the same without him, and Phil DeFreitas recalls drinking one too many Fantas at the 1987 World Cup.

As for our columnists, Mark Ramprakash hails the contrasting brilliance of Joe Root and Harry Brook, Andrew Miller examines England’s failure at the Women’s T20 World Cup, Lawrence Booth reports on Hampshire’s takeover, and Tawhid Qureshi dives into the latest chapter in the unmissable Shakib Al Hasan soap opera.