Jul 14, 2026 · 26 min · 11 segments
Butch gives his take on Brendon McCullum being stood down from his role as England's Test head coach. 👀 PATREON For bonus podcasts and daily episodes after every England game, sign up to our…
Mark ButcherGuest
Katya WitneyHost
I think that it's, it's all a bit of a mess because if you were going to replace, obviously the, the, the captaincy was an unknown at the time, but if that replacement was on the cards to be done, then probably it should have been done before the summer started.
And I understand that obviously Richard Gould was interviewed during the, the women's test at, at Lords, and we had the issue that we spoke about at the time, Yas and I, that at the end of the Ashes, they only had a very short period of time before the, the T20 World Cup.
The T20 World Cup actually went pretty well, us, uh, almost getting to the final in that one.
Um, and so therefore the sort of like the clamor for change died down, and the reason for change kind of died down at the time.
But now we're in a situation whereby we have no test match captain, we have no test match coach.
The trium- the triumvirate of Key, McCullum, and Stokes were, were so in simpatico from the, from the very beginning.
A new captain maybe not, w- won't be quite so much of a big deal in terms of that whole relationship, but a new coach is gonna want to do things very much his own way.
It's not gonna be simply a case of rolling over what went on in terms of selection, in terms of the style of play, et cetera, et cetera, um, when you bring a new coach in, whoever that might be.
And, and they can kind of try and spin it that, you know, it's happened at the right time and the organization needs to move in a different direction.
But how, how does that happen in, in practice? Say, for example, the, obviously the, the front runner for, um, for the job at the moment would be Andy Flower, right? Um, a, a man who has, who has had incredible success as a coach, not only with England at the beginning, but everywhere else he's been since.
Um, and by all accounts, he's a, he's a, a changed man from the, the strict disciplinarian that was in charge when, uh, when England got to number one.
And also, you know, the, the, what does that mean for, for Rob Key and the way that, that, the way that that relationship then develops? Does Ro- does Keysie sort of take a little bit more of a back seat? Because he was very much involved with the whole McCullum-Stokes axis.
I, I apologize if I'm rambling a little bit because the, the whole thing is in su- is, is such a mess, and we really don't know.
Could it be Justin Langer? Could Alex Stuart be tempted into a director of cricket role, which means another sacking? [laughs] Um, you know, the, the, it's just, it, it is, it's absolutely fitting that Pakistan are gonna be the team coming over to, to compete against us next in the test arena because, you know, we, we ought to perhaps ask them how you deal with the, with the, with this sort of stuff, because they're very good at it.
Um, or at least not very, perhaps not very good, isn't, is not the right way of describing it.
I think that it's, it's all a bit of a mess because if you were going to replace, obviously the, the, the captaincy was an unknown at the time, but if that replacement was on the cards to be done, then probably it should have been done before the summer started.
And I understand that obviously Richard Gould was interviewed during the, the women's test at, at Lords, and we had the issue that we spoke about at the time, Yas and I, that at the end of the Ashes, they only had a very short period of time before the, the T20 World Cup.
The T20 World Cup actually went pretty well, us, uh, almost getting to the final in that one.
Um, and so therefore the sort of like the clamor for change died down, and the reason for change kind of died down at the time.
But now we're in a situation whereby we have no test match captain, we have no test match coach.
The trium- the triumvirate of Key, McCullum, and Stokes were, were so in simpatico from the, from the very beginning.
A new captain maybe not, w- won't be quite so much of a big deal in terms of that whole relationship, but a new coach is gonna want to do things very much his own way.
It's not gonna be simply a case of rolling over what went on in terms of selection, in terms of the style of play, et cetera, et cetera, um, when you bring a new coach in, whoever that might be.
And, and they can kind of try and spin it that, you know, it's happened at the right time and the organization needs to move in a different direction.
But how, how does that happen in, in practice? Say, for example, the, obviously the, the front runner for, um, for the job at the moment would be Andy Flower, right? Um, a, a man who has, who has had incredible success as a coach, not only with England at the beginning, but everywhere else he's been since.
Um, and by all accounts, he's a, he's a, a changed man from the, the strict disciplinarian that was in charge when, uh, when England got to number one.
And also, you know, the, the, what does that mean for, for Rob Key and the way that, that, the way that that relationship then develops? Does Ro- does Keysie sort of take a little bit more of a back seat? Because he was very much involved with the whole McCullum-Stokes axis.
I, I apologize if I'm rambling a little bit because the, the whole thing is in su- is, is such a mess, and we really don't know.
Could it be Justin Langer? Could Alex Stuart be tempted into a director of cricket role, which means another sacking? [laughs] Um, you know, the, the, it's just, it, it is, it's absolutely fitting that Pakistan are gonna be the team coming over to, to compete against us next in the test arena because, you know, we, we ought to perhaps ask them how you deal with the, with the, with this sort of stuff, because they're very good at it.
Um, or at least not very, perhaps not very good, isn't, is not the right way of describing it.
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Begging to Fix a Shitshow
How bad does Butcher think things are
Could Stokes Have Stayed?
Was Stokes loss really avoidable after all
Flower, IPL and Hypocrisy
The Flower-IPL conflict comes full circle today
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