England back Test stars for white-ball assault on India

Brendon McCullum and Jos Buttler are close friends. Which is lucky, because at McCullum’s unveiling as England’s new whiteball coach in September, he had a quip at his mate’s and now captain’s expense.

- CAMERON PONSONBY

“He's been a little bit miserable at times,” McCullum said, tongue firmly in cheek, citing Buttler’s infamously poor poker face that had been on show throughout England’s consecutive poor World Cup performances.

It was a comment that only a friend could make. If you or I were to have told Buttler the first thing he should be doing is cheering up, we’d have been within our rights to find ourselves missing a few teeth shortly after, but from McCullum, the point stood. “I saw that,” Buttler said with a smile a couple of months later. “Saying how miserable I am. It’s obviously something I need to work on.”

Now, four months after the announcement that McCullum would be taking the white-ball reins, the pair are finally brought together. McCullum’s official start date is today, when England kick off with three ODIs and five T20s against India, before travelling to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy.

McCullum is only here because things are going badly for England. When he took over as head coach of the Test team in 2022, he turned down the chance to add the white-ball team to his CV because there was no challenge there. The calendar was ram-packed and the team was flying. They’d promptly go on to win the T20 World Cup that year in Matthew Mott and Buttler’s first competition together.