Mumbai- Veteran India wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik believes England’s dressing room in Test cricket will be a very “relaxed” one under the new head coach Brendon McCullum, citing experience of working as captain under his coaching for Kolkata Knight Riders in 2019 and half of 2020 IPL.
On Thursday, McCullum, a former New Zealand skipper, had been appointed as England’s Test side head coach. His stint as Test side’s head coach will start from England’s three-match home series against New Zealand, starting on June 2 at Lord’s.
“It will be a very relaxed dressing room. I’ve seen that he is somebody who focuses a lot on playing a lot of sports off the field and off the field having a lot of fun as well. He emphasizes a lot on it like a young kid who likes to play all the sports possible and gets very physical as well,” said Karthik on the ICC Review Show.
“He is a very strong man, there is no doubt about it. Sometimes even too strong for the current cricketers today. It will be a very relaxed dressing room, a very chill dressing room. It’ll be very interesting how the youngsters are able to draw energy from that and make sure they are doing all things right to take English cricket forward,” added Karthik.
From the mental perspective, Karthik thinks McCullum’s positivity will play a huge role in resurrecting England’s direction in Test cricket. “The one thing I can tell you in the enormous amounts of time I’ve spent with him is that there is no negative bone in his body. He is somebody who wants to do everything in a positive manner.”
“So it’s going to be very interesting when Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum meet up and figure out what’s the positive way for England cricket to do things. Because there will be times when they are obviously faced with tough wickets and the batters sometimes will need to find a way between what is being positive and what is being reckless. I think that’ll be a very interesting battle for them.”
Being England’s head coach in Test cricket will be McCullum’s first international coaching assignment. Till now, he has mostly been a white-ball coach in franchise T20 cricket. Karthik thinks he will have to adapt to the rigours of being a coach in red-ball cricket.
“I think there will be certain things that will be definitely new to Brendon McCullum. There is no doubt about it. Even though he has done his coaching bit for Kolkata Knight Riders and for Trinbago Knight Riders, I think red-ball cricket is a completely different kettle of fish.”
Karthik signed off by signalling that McCullum could have got the job due to the challenge of rebuilding England as a Test side after 16 losses in last 17 matches, something which he did in changing the culture of the New Zealand side as a captain.
“I think McCullum wants to take this up because he sees this as a major challenge. A team that has obviously not done really well in the last two years. A bit in the dumps but to try and resurrect and try and take them to the pinnacle of Test cricket, which is what they are aiming to do.”
–IANS