Former England spinner Monty Panesar has recommended former India head coach Ravi Shastri as the best person to lead the England side amid the mounting controversy surrounding McCullum’s future.
After yet another dismal tour of Australia, when the Ben Stokes-led team lost the Ashes series in just 11 days, England head coach Brendon McCullum is under heavy pressure. The decisive loss has sparked new concerns about McCullum’s tactical strategy and the viability of the widely debated “Bazball” ideology.
After England’s 4-0 Ashes loss in Australia in 2022, Rob Key, managing director of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), named McCullum as England’s head coach. England’s Test cricket was first reinvigorated by McCullum and Stokes, who guided the team to 10 wins in their first 11 games as manager.
But since then, England’s progress has stagnated. The team has lost 16 of its next 33 games and has lost none of its prestigious five-match Test series against Australia or India. These difficulties have been further brought to light by the current Ashes series, in which England is now behind 0–3 with two games remaining.
Panesar thinks Shastri would be a good fit for the position because of his background and knowledge of what it takes to defeat Australia at home.
“You have to consider: who specifically knows how to defeat Australia? How can you strategically, tactically, and mentally exploit Australia’s weaknesses? In a YouTube video, Panesar told journalist Ravi Bisht, “I believe that Ravi Shastri ought to be the next head coach of England.”
India won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy twice on Australian soil when Shastri was in office.
The first occurred in 2018–19, when India won their first Test series in Australia. They accomplished the same feat in 2020–2021, memorably recovering from the notorious “36 all out” in the Adelaide pink-ball Test and surviving a tour that was badly hampered by injury.
In the meantime, McCullum has stated that he wants to stay as England’s head coach despite growing outside pressure, but he has admitted that, after the Ashes loss, he may not have complete control over his destiny. In addition to the next home Ashes series in 2027, the former New Zealand captain’s contract with the ECB is set to expire at the end of the 2027 ODI World Cup.
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