England captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum defend their side’s Bazball approach and under siege batsman after Mitchell Starc and Travis Head power Australia to glory

Bazball mastermind McCullum says England will not cool their jets for a more conservative game plan.

“We’ve got some work to do, no doubt, but what we won’t change is our plan,” McCullum told the BBC.

“We’re going to stick to that and stay tight as a team and, as we’ve done in the past when we’ve lost games, we’re going to keep pushing forward and make sure the confidence levels are as high as possible when we go into the next game.

“Travis’ way [Head] The play was outstanding and one of the best innings I have ever seen under pressure. He put us under pressure and played fair. The knock on the door was special and giving him the order was a brave decision. He was amazing. “We will try to insulate against too much reaction.”

Vaughan said England could not achieve success without greater flexibility in their approach.

“Just playing 67 overs in a Test match is not good enough,” Vaughan told Kayo Sports. “I really believe in the squad depth of the England team, they have the tools to be really competitive. But you can’t be competitive without brains. They tried to play one way and got bogged down.”

“If they don’t sit down as a batting unit and go over the mistakes they made this week, they’re definitely going to get hit. They need to learn from the mistakes they made this week.”

Stone-faced Stokes was yet to come to terms with how his team had been knocked out of the park by Head when he spoke on Saturday night.

“We have to let these two hours be thought through, without any emotion attached to what’s going on,” Stokes said.

“There’s a lot of disappointment when you’re on the losing side and walk away. That’s up to me, Baz [McCullum] and some of the other veteran guys who have a lot of experience in big series like this.

“[We need to] Let those feelings sink in, it must hurt. [But] You should get rid of it as quickly as possible while learning from it. When we come to Brisbane we need to get back to the mentality we had before this game.

“We’re still very confident in our abilities to achieve a goal. We shouldn’t take any blame from this result on Brisbane because we need to win this.”

Stokes defended England’s approach with the bat, saying it was the players who attacked the bowling rather than the dictates of it that succeeded in these conditions.

“When you get the result, you can label it whatever you want,” Stokes said.

“The batsmen who had success were the ones who never missed a scoring opportunity that came their way. You still have to find ways to score on flat wickets, ways to score runs on wickets that offer a lot to the bowlers.

“We were more proactive in our approach due to the fall of 19 wickets on the first day which resulted in us gaining a lead of 50 runs. It would have been nice to have a bigger lead in the final innings but we were very confident we could win the game but that wasn’t the case.”

The impact of England’s reckless batting was compounded by the lack of rest it afforded the pace demons, who, tired from bowling for consecutive days, lost their pace and became prey for Head.

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England’s bowlers averaged 141 kmph on the first day but Jofra Archer has taken a step back from minor red-ball cricket since entering the Test arena in 2019, dropping into the 130s.

“I think it could be a natural thing,” Stokes said of England’s slow pace. “The first-day spending of the Ashes series, I think, takes a lot out of you – more than people probably understand. “We put a lot of energy and effort into yesterday’s bowling performance.

“Batting for long periods is easier said than done, but much harder to do. Every bowler would like to get some more rest, but yes.”