England in India: Brendon McCullum takes over as white-ball coach
McCullum’s bold approach is also reflected in his experience as head coach of a franchise cricket team before taking the England Test job.
He won the Caribbean Premier League title with Trinbago Knight Riders in 2020, remained unbeaten in 12 games in the T20 tournament and reached the Indian Premier League final with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2021.
There, KKR won just two of their first seven games before publicly accusing his batsmen of being too timid in attack.
“Time and time again I’ve asked us to be more aggressive,” he said.
“A saying I’ve used throughout my career is ‘If you can’t change a man, change him’.”
As a result, Nitish Rana was moved from the starting spot to the middle order, with Venkatesh Iyer at the top of the order.
KKR’s powerplay run rate jumped from 7.25 to 8.08 per over and they won seven of the next nine games before losing to the Chennai Super Kings in the final.
Offense is non-negotiable.
