by Brendon McCullum has vowed that England will shrug and go “hard” in India after returning from a mid-tour break in Abu Dhabi without their cricket gear.
The series, which McCullum described as a “heavyweight fight”, is perfectly poised at 1-1 after England’s 106-run victory in Vizag, as tourists leave India for the break with their growing families as feature of the modern tour. .
McCullum said there would not be “enough training at all” in Abu Dhabi, despite the facilities being so good that England chose to prepare for the series there. This time the order is rest with families, as players are not expected to bring their cricket gear.
One, however, will be Dan Lawrence, the reserve batsman, who will be joining Desert Vipers, the franchise team he played for before being called up to cover for Harry Brook, who is at home due to a family bereavement and has not been hoping he will return by now.
Certainly the first for an England player on tour, Lawrence is expected to play for the Vipers in the ILT20 on Friday and Sunday this week. He is likely to be the only player to do so, despite others being linked to teams in the league.
“It’s going to be pretty relaxed,” McCullum said. “There won’t be much training. The boys worked extremely hard in Abu Dhabi bearing in mind that they all came here with a lot of cricket under their belts too. We’ve had plenty of training days, two different test matches and this is a chance to get away from the heat of battle.”
Although the move had the potential to offend their hosts, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has arranged a chartered flight to facilitate the tour, which ends on Monday when England fly back to Rajkot for training two days before the third Test. . Later in the tour, there is another long break, during which England will stay in India.
During last summer’s Ashes, Australia’s players took holidays across Europe with their families – taking in places such as Amsterdam and Majorca – to come back during a soggy series. McCullum promised England would come back ready to “drop a shoulder” – a rugby expression in his native New Zealand that means giving the opposition a reason to attack.
“I was talking to Rahul Dravid [the India coach] and he mentioned that all his boys are also shooting at home,” he said. “Home for us is a little far away so we chose Abu Dhabi and we are going to enjoy the families. Then when we reach Rajkot, we drop the shoulder and go hard.
“We sit 1-1, which fairly shows that we are in the competition. We have played some really good cricket in the last two Test matches. Yes, we’ve come out on the wrong side of it here but we got it across the line in the first one. The determination about how we do it is as strong as ever.
“The loss is not a good thing but we walk away saying that we gave him a great performance in this Test match and that India are deserving winners.”
Spinner Jack Leach ‘pretty crook’
As England leaves the country, there are a few headaches to manage. Senior spinner Jack Leach looks set to be available for the third Test due to the knee he strained in the series opener in Hyderabad. He is one of several players to have come down with a nasty virus, but is said to be still in pain and still unable to train.
“I really don’t know [how the injury is] because it was crooked,” McCullum said. “His knee is bad and it was great that he got through what he did in the first test match. He’s still pretty inflamed and he’s back at the hotel a nice crook. We had some guys who were sick in the Test too and whether it was a virus or not we are not sure. Ollie Pope and Tom Hartley in particular too but they didn’t want to avoid it. We won’t use that as an excuse but hopefully that will wear off in the next little while and we’ll see where Leachy is sitting for the next one.”
Joe Root’s batting form is the other issue, but McCullum predicts he will score “a s–t-ton of runs” when the series resumes. In England’s doomed defeat of 399 on Monday, Root fell for a frantic 10-ball 16, which gave him a score of 52 runs for the series, but coach McCullum is confident that he will find his form again.
“He’s a great player and as good as any player England has ever seen,” he said.
“The way he was in the second innings, even though people will be looking at the dismissal, he was trying to get back on the field so he could beat them. It’s the bravery that sometimes you have to take and sometimes you end up doing it but that’s just how the game rolls. There is no doubt from our point of view in that approach. Three Tests left, still a chance to score a s–t-ton of runs.
