McCullum vows England will ride or die with Bazball blasters

England have returned from their mid-Ashes beach retreat recalibrated rather than reformed as Brendon McCullum vowed to triple down on the Bazball blueprint with the series, and possibly his job, on the line in Adelaide.  

The tourists swapped sandals for spikes for the first time since their Gabba defeat and ensuing getaway to Queensland's Sunshine Coast, a pit stop McCullum today reiterated had been arranged a year out from the Australian tour he accepts will define his and captain Ben Stokes' legacy as a leadership duo.

The former New Zealand blaster all but guaranteed England would ride or die with the same batting personnel they have empowered over the past 18 months, while any changes to the bowling attack would be minimal.

As critics sharpen their pencils with the visitors one defeat away from being consigned to a fourth consecutive Ashes failure on these shores, McCullum believes the Adelaide Oval's drop-in pitch and short square boundaries will suit his aggressive line-up more than the bouncy decks in Perth and Brisbane that hosted their first two defeats.

"We had a plan that we felt would give ourselves the best chance of being successful. We haven't quite executed that so far and Australia have seized those key moments, and hence they sit two-nil up," McCullum told reporters on Sunday.

"It doesn't mean that we throw that plan out.

"If anything, we just need to chisel away at some of the things that haven't gone quite right and make sure that we still have that conviction of what we're trying to achieve.

"I think these conditions should suit our style a little bit better as well. That doesn't mean we couldn't have been successful previously, but this is probably more attuned to what our best form of cricket, our best style of cricket (is)."

It is a recommitment to a method that helped reinvigorate English cricket with but is now coming under the microscope given the men's team has lost more Tests (12) than they have won (11) from their last 24 starts.

"I certainly don't coach to protect a job," McCullum said when asked if he was feeling the heat. "I coach to get the best out of people – and that's the same with the skipper. That won't be changing this week just because the prize is at its highest."

McCullum conceded a bust-up between an England security official and a local television cameraman on the team's departure from Brisbane airport on Saturday "wasn't ideal" but that "it's been dealt with and everyone's able to move on".

The incident, which McCullum downplayed as part of the "fun stuff" that comes with being a high-profile international sporting team, has overshadowed England largely handling the scrutiny of their two-month long tour with grace and good humour.

After Stokes posed on a Noosa beach with a pair of radio DJs brandishing banners taking the mickey out of his team, Joe Root made a point of thanking one of the local net bowlers for his time as his team tuned up in the Adelaide Oval nets on Sunday.

McCullum, wearing unlaced white Nikes as he held an unusual mid-series press conference in place of one his players, insisted off-field attempts to get under England's skin were expected.

"There is hostility – my wife's Australian, I know the Australian people very well – there is hostility early, but once you break that down, it's always good fun and you end up getting respect," said the Dunedin-born former keeper-bat who played 101 Tests for the Black Caps.

"For our boys, they know that we haven't been at our best on the field. We've still got to enjoy ourselves off the field, still treat this country with the respect and enjoyment that we wanted when we came here, and just tidy up a few things on the field."

The main concession of regret from McCullum has been his iteration that his team trained too hard in the lead-in to the pink-ball encounter in Brisbane, leaving them short of the freshness required to beat a home side that holds a formidable day-night Test record.

With temperatures forecast to soar towards 40 degrees Celsius for days one and two of this third Test, England will need to draw on all their reserves next week.

Milder weekend weather at least allowed players to go through their paces in comfortable circumstances on Sunday.

The sound of Jofra Archer's chain bouncing on his chest rang around the Oval's nets during their practice hit-out as he steamed in alongside an equally wholehearted Stokes, with the ECB's cricket chief Rob Key watching on.

Ollie Pope, whose place has come under the most scrutiny in recent weeks, looks set to remain at No.3. That is in keeping with a McCullum era hallmark, seeking to instil confidence at all costs in the batters deemed best equipped to pull off his aggressive style of play.

There has in fact been minimal turnover in top-order personnel going right back to the beginning of his tenure, the start of the 2022 northern summer. Joe Root has played all 43 Tests since then, while Pope, Zak Crawley (40 Tests each), Stokes (38), Ben Duckett (36) and Harry Brook (32) have rarely missed over a three-a-half-year period.

That batting unit has become even more entrenched over the past 18 months. Since wicketkeeper Jamie Smith's debut in July last year, the only names outside those listed above that have featured in the top seven have been Jacob Bethell (who has played four Tests, three effectively standing in for Smith and one when Stokes was injured) and Dan Lawrence (three Tests when Crawley was hurt).

If McCullum's patience was ever to wear thin, this might have been the week. Only Root is averaging above 30 for the tour so far. Crawley, Brook and Stokes are the only others to pass fifty in an innings, while every member of that top seven has been out for a duck (Crawley twice) bar Stokes.

Instead, England have vowed to back in their misfiring batters. "I wouldn't have thought so," McCullum said when asked if he would consider a change in their top order.

"We've had a top seven now for a period of time and we've been reasonably successful with it. These conditions should suit the style of batters that we've got as well.

"We know we haven't got enough runs so far in the series. We've been in positions where we could have and we made mistakes, and that can happen at times.

"But for us to go on and win the series, it's not about throwing out what's been successful.

"It's about having more conviction. It's about making sure that we have our plans and our disciplines around it just screwed down a touch more.

"Let's make sure we walk out with a belief of what we're capable of achieving. Knee jerk reactions, and chopping and changing settled batting lineups, is not really our way."

On the bowling front, McCullum again defended Jofra Archer after the spearhead's fiery fourth-innings spell at the Gabba. Steve Smith was caught on the broadcast's stump microphone questioning why Archer had not cranked up his speed past the 150kph mark earlier in the match, with several former Australia stars eager to join the pile-on.

McCullum essentially suggested Archer was damned if he did, damned if he didn't – "if you mope around bowling 75mph (120kph) in that last innings, then the narrative would be very different" – and praised the speedster for his passion through the second Test.

Ultimately there was an acknowledgement the high-pace group McCullum has groomed as his answer to Australia's pace cartel have not held their lengths well enough, aside from their vicious first-up outing in Perth when they knocked over the hosts for 132.

Josh Tongue is the frontrunner to come into the side should England look for to replace one of Archer, Gus Atkinson or Brydon Carse, while Shoaib Bashir will come into calculations, likely at Will Jacks' expense, should the visitors seek to follow Australia's lead in picking a specialist spinner in Adelaide.

"I don't think the blueprint's necessarily wrong," McCullum said of his preference for bowlers who can top 140kph. "I think the execution hasn't quite been there.

"We're all big enough to admit we haven't been at our best. We haven't been able to operate necessarily consistently enough on the lengths, which have been the most challenging on the surfaces that we've been confronted with.

"That'll be what we're going to have to adapt to quick here – what length gives us the most amount of danger with ball in hand? And how are we able to control the game and the momentum within a game, so that we're not passing up those opportunities to attack?

"We haven't been at our best with the ball. We haven't been out with our best in the field either. It doesn't mean we don't have the skills, but at the moment, we just haven't found that little ingredient they need if you're going to come to Australia and take them on their own conditions."

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Second Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad (third Test only): Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue