'They are playing like Brendon McCullum told them' - Trent Boult on England's dominance in ongoing series

New Zealand pacer Trent Boult feels that the reason behind England’s victory in the ongoing Test series is the arrival of new head coach Brendon McCullum. McCullum, the former New Zealand skipper, joined hands with ECB to take charge of the red-ball duties with the ongoing New Zealand series being his first assignment.

England’s performance in the Test format had been very poor for quite some time. That made Joe Root step down from the captaincy and Ben Stokes stepped up for the role. After a handful of changes in the setup, England defeated New Zealand, the visiting side, in the first two games of the three-match Test series to take an unassailable 2-0 lead.

“They are playing like I thought he (McCullum) told them to. It’s a new change for English cricket. What a start. Both games so far have been thrillers really. For Test cricket as a whole, hopefully, we see many more games like that and get many more eyes watching,” Boult was quoted by India Today.

There’s a lot of pride in that changing room: Trent Boult

The pacer feels that New Zealand‘s 0-2 trail in the series stems from the team’s failure to sustain the high standards they desired. He did say, though, that some individual performances have brought a great sense of pride in the dressing room.

“I suppose it’s hard being 0-2 down in the series. But there’s a lot of pride in that changing room from some of the performances we’ve put out over the last few years. If we’re fair, we probably haven’t been at the standards we want to be as a group, it’s nice to have one game to go out and play like we know we can,” Boult said.

Notably, New Zealand faced a setback before the second Test as their skipper Kane Williamson had to isolate himself after testing positive for the Covid-19 virus. While Tom Latham took over the captaincy, Boult scalped eight wickets in the second Test but his efforts went in vain as the Kiwis eventually lost the game. The two teams will meet again at Headingley in Leeds for the third and final Test starting June 23, Thursday.