Major goes all in on McCullum with England white-ball spend

Managing director has quadrupled his wager on encouraging head coach, but England's unrelenting deadline remains biggest concern

Ashes set and World Cup success are evaluated for English cricket. The modifications to both Brendon McCullum's deal and his mandate, announced on Tuesday, represent Rob Key quadrupling the size of his gamble: McCullum will not only taking command of the 2025/26 Ashes, but now the 2026 T20 World Cup, 2027 Ashes and 2027 50-over World Cup, also.

Major made clear when he was appointed England's managing producer two years ago that his decision to split the training tasks owed to rationality, rather than rule. " You get a better list of candidates … almost all of them are like,' I had n't been going for this if it was one]role],'" Key said. " You want the best people, and you build the framework around them".

In effect, that is precisely what Key has tried to do with this gambit. There has been a total change in England's Test cricket under McCullum: he has overseen 19 win, eight loses and a second draw, and has given them a distinct personality that they were sorely lacking. Key's idea is that he can have the same result on a sluggish white-ball set-up.

In a training business that is heavily skewed towards the franchise circuit, Key believes that McCullum's fresh contract is a big coup for England:" We are very lucky that a coach of his quality is prepared to commit fully to English cricket", he said on Tuesday. We're confident that our players and coaching workers may develop the best in the restructuring.

It is a visit which highlights the importance of understanding. England have played some amazing Test cricket under McCullum but are yet to get a line against the world's best two: they drew with Australia past summers, and were greatly beaten in India earlier this year. Despite having won five clinical games this summer, there is still a sense of optimism among the team.

By contrast, Matthew Mott took England to three World Cups and won one of them, his team beating Pakistan at the MCG less than two years ago. Even so, he was fired after reaching the semi-finals in June: Jos Buttler's hangdog expression illustrated a team's stalled progress that necessitated a leadership change, which was ultimately forced on Mott.

The pitfalls of McCullum's new role are hidden in plain sight. England and India both play Test matches more frequently than any other country, and only India and England both play international cricket. Their ludicrous fixture list is encapsulated by the 24-hour turnaround between the scheduled fifth-day finish of the upcoming third Test against Sri Lanka and the start of a T20I series against Australia.

Key insisted that the" constant clashes" between formats "are easing, starting from January" but the volume of cricket scheduled is still substantial. Expect McCullum to have few qualms about handing the reins to one of his assistants for several bilateral series over the next three years- as Rahul Dravid did throughout his tenure with India.

The trouble lies further ahead, with a dilemma that is familiar to England's captains and coaches across the past two decades: how can you plan for both an Ashes series, and a World Cup straight after it? It is akin to a tennis player winning Wimbledon and jumping on a plane to Flushing Meadows, or an athlete being asked to compete in a World Championships immediately after an Olympic Games.

In both the 2025-26 winter and the 2027 summer, McCullum will need his players to perform at their best throughout a four-month period- a scenario in which England have always struggled. Nasser Hussain ( 2003 ), Michael Vaughan ( 2007 ) and Andrew Strauss ( 2011 ) all led depleted squads to 50-over World Cups which were staged immediately after Ashes tours, with predictable results, Buttler faced a similar situation last year, with England's multi-format players underperforming in India.

When the turnaround was reversed five years ago, Buttler was one of the players who had a problem. England's 2019 World Cup triumph, the culmination of their white-ball revolution under Eoin Morgan's captaincy, left players physically and emotionally drained yet was swiftly followed by a home Ashes series: England snuck a 2-2 series draw, but were outplayed.

As Australia's fine record at World Cups can attest, scaling twin peaks in quick succession is by no means impossible: only three members of their side that beat India in Ahmedabad last year did not feature on the Ashes tour which preceded the World Cup. Andrew McDonald oversaw success on two fronts, something which has eluded England's coaches.

More immediately, McCullum's task will be to inject some energy into a white-ball set-up which felt desperately low on it by the time they were knocked out of June's T20 World Cup. With Marcus Trescothick in charge at the moment, he will follow them to watch from a distance for their next 14 games before making his debut with a quick trip to India before the Champions Trophy in February.

The biggest unknown for McCullum will be his relationship with Buttler. Buttler idolised McCullum as a player but has never played or worked with him, and his captaincy is under scrutiny after the manner of England's semi-final defeat to India in Guyana. McCullum should be strong enough to take the lead when Buttler had Mott's power balance in check.

England believe they have a new core of young players who can become regulars across formats over the next decade: this includes Harry Brook, Jamie Smith and Gus Atkinson, who have all showcased their attacking style in McCullum's Test team. Key's latest attempt to bridge the gap between the two codes, which was about to become a chasm, is merely the most recent one.

After Morgan had made England's white-ball teams regular semi-finalists and global game trendsetters, McCullum made it clear to Key just two years ago that he had no interest in playing them. He finds himself in charge of yet another revival now that they are behind.