McCullum's admission was gobsmacking but there is hope

The England coach owned up to his approach not working under pressure, but his side can still salvage positives from a humbling Ashes series if they adapt their ways

- Mark Ramprakash

Finally, in the last two days of the third Test with the series already basically lost, England stood up. They have been on a hell of a journey over 11 days of Test cricket, and now - too late - they are getting somewhere. They have reminded me of some of the students who have passed through the school where I teach: they get into the upper sixths and they’re first-team cricketers, the big boys, very confident, dominating the team, playing good cricket, think they’ve cracked the code. Then they have a gap year and go travelling, and suddenly they realise there’s a whole world out

there, that life can be tough and things can be done differently. Out of their comfort zone they can mature rapidly as young men and as people. I look at England’s performance in the third Test and think that after some tough experiences, and having been forced to confront the fact that they are not what they thought they were, they have maybe turned a corner in terms of their maturity.

That might seem an odd statement given the experience in this team, but so much of their approach to cricket and to this series has been anything but mature. The leadership around this team has produced a lot of memorable rhetoric across the last few years - running towards the danger, see ball hit ball, we don’t play for draws, taking the aggressive option - but here, in the disappointment of defeat,

'He is all about freeing players from fear. But when it came to the crunch, his methods failed'