Brendon McCullum, England’s head coach, accepted his team’s “missed opportunity” after Pakistan sealed a 2-1 series victory with decisive spin-friendly tactics in Multan and Rawalpindi. McCullum remained magnanimous but acknowledged that his side, despite a historic 800-plus first-innings total in the opener, faltered as Pakistan overhauled their lineup and capitalized on turn-heavy pitches. Following a ruthless innings win on Multan’s flat deck, Pakistan, with a refreshed selection panel, introduced spinning surfaces that saw Sajid Khan and Noman Ali share 39 out of 40 English wickets.
Their bowling transformed the series, dismantling England for just 814 runs across four innings, turning the tide sharply in Pakistan’s favour.
“Credit to Pakistan, the way that those two spinners bowled was superb,” McCullum told Sky Sports. “I thought they varied the pace beautifully. Noman from one end, taking pace off most of the time with the occasional fast one, and Sajid flipping that around and putting pace on with the occasional slow one. I thought was great partnership bowling. And our guys weren’t able to sustain the pressure, unfortunately.”
“When teams come to England, ideally we play on the surfaces that we’re more accustomed to, which allow our strengths to really flourish and maybe paper over some of the weaknesses as well, which every team naturally has,” said McCullum.
England’s batting struggles, notably those of Ollie Pope, Zak Crawley, and Harry Brook, revealed a lack of adaptability under pressure. Brook, after shining in the first Test, faltered with a high score of 26 in the last four innings.
“I’m a little bit surprised it’s taken Pakistan as long as it has. Because when you go to Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, the ball is always going to turn. What we had here a couple of years ago, or in that first Test match, where it was pretty flat, was a different challenge. It’ll be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether they persist with these types of surfaces, but certainly, there are no excuses from our point of view. We had our chances, and we ran second,” the England head coach said.
McCullum defended England’s batting unit as the best they’ve assembled but admitted that adaptation was lacking as Pakistan played on their strengths. He also pointed to England’s spinners, Shoaib Bashir and Jack Leach, who couldn’t replicate the Pakistani spinners’ success despite similar conditions.
“It’s pretty much the same batting group that came here two years ago and were outstanding in these conditions, and it’s the same batting group that put on 800 in the first Test match,” McCullum said. “As the conditions changed, we were presented with different challenges and we weren’t quite able to adapt to those challenges. And that’s a missed opportunity.
“I have no doubt, and the skipper has no doubt, that the batting group that we’ve now had together for the best part of 18 months is the best that we’ve got,” he added. “We’re very confident, we’ve just got to make sure we keep allowing guys to develop them and keep becoming the players that they want to become and will benefit from that,” he added.
Reflecting on the lessons learned, the former New Zealand batter added, “You’re always trying to improve, but you’ve got to be really careful that you’re not seeking perfection because it doesn’t exist in an inconsistent game. The game we play is going to come with periods where it’s not going how you want it to, but you’ve still got to hold firm.
“We will be confronted with spinning conditions at some stage in the future, and we hope that some of the lessons, good and bad that we’ve had throughout this series, will give us a bit more of a base to be able to be successful,” he said.
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