Brendon McCullum has backed Kevin Pietersen to help educate England’s batting lineup before the “specialist mentor” he hired in the summer leaves the tour of Australia after Sunday’s second one-day international in Adelaide. The collapse to 131 all out for a seven-wicket defeat in Perth on Friday naturally brought back memories of the first Ashes Test 12 months ago. But more relevant is what it means should a similarly fast, bouncy surface – such as at the Wanderers in Johannesburg – be encountered during next year’s 50-over World Cup in southern Africa.
McCullum said he would outsource the post-match debrief to Pietersen, before the 46-year-old departs for India on Monday to speak at a YouTube conference. Having originally planned to return for the T20 leg of this tour, Pietersen’s next assignment with England is now expected to be the ODIs in South Africa in January.
“It all happened pretty quick,” England’s white-ball head coach told TNT Sports. “We weren’t quick enough to adapt to the conditions. We talked extensively leading into the game about the surface. It’s a bit like batting on a trampoline, there are certain shots that are very difficult to execute.
“Overall we’re disappointed but there are some good lessons for us. If you look towards the World Cup in South Africa there’s going to be some pitches there that will test us from a bounce point of view. We need to be able to adapt to conditions a bit more, we need to scrap a bit more.
“KP has got such a nice manner about him. He sees his role to get the talent to perform on the world stage. His message will be measured but firm – adapting to conditions, what could we have done, trying to drive the ball on the up is not wise. Next time we hit a surface like this we have to try and work it better.”
After an encouraging summer that returned series wins over India and Sri Lanka, England’s 50-over side has endured a disappointing start to the winter. Four defeats and just one dead-rubber victory during the recent tri-series in Pakistan has underlined the scale of their task over the next 11 months.
One noteworthy feature during this run – albeit not exactly telling here in Perth – has been the leg-spinner Adil Rashid, England’s second highest ODI wicket-taker and a pillar during their past success, losing his spot to Liam Dawson.
As was the case in Pakistan, the one-day captain, Harry Brook, insisted this particular selection call was solely down to conditions although whether this reason holds in Adelaide, usually a more batter-friendly pitch, remains to be seen.
Brook added: “We knew that the surface here today was going to be seam-friendly and spin wasn’t going to play a massive part, hence why we went with Daws [who is] probably a better batter than Rash at the minute. That was the right decision in the end. Obviously we haven’t got the result that we wanted and Daws didn’t bowl.”
