Brendon McCullum should be fired as England head coach after their recent disastrous Ashes series in Australia, says Steve Harmison.
England were comprehensively beaten Down Under, losing the best-of-five Test-match series 4-1.
To make matters worse, Australia won the Ashes outright inside 11 days as they dominated England to take an unassailable 3-0 lead come the third Test in December.
Going into the series, many believed England could win the Ashes in Australia for the first time since 2010-11 with their opponents struggling with problems of their own but that wasn’t the case at all.
And reflecting on that Ashes debacle, 2005 Ashes hero Harmison believes McCullum’s time is up.
Speaking on The Overlap and Betfair’s Stick to Cricket show, he said: ‘I’ll be making a decision on McCullum solely on this one Ashes series just gone. Because as a coach, you drive the message.
‘As a coach, you prepare the players. As a coach, you prepare the team. You make sure you’re leaving no stone unturned to make sure that everything that we potentially think is going to go right or wrong, you’re ready for it as a coach. And I think England got all that horribly wrong.
‘I am reluctant, but I think McCullum should go. Honestly, when a lot of us are talking about, we didn’t beat India at home, didn’t beat Australia at home etc., I’m not that bothered about that a so much. I’m bothered about this recent Ashes series.’
Steve Harmison: I don’t think Andrew Flintoff will take England job
Andrew Flintoff has been earmarked as a future England head coach but Harmison believes his former team-mate wouldn’t take the job just yet – adding that he is doing a great job with the England Lions.
‘What sort of brand of cricket do you want. Brendon had an identity. He had a way of playing. So, it’s where you want that way of playing to go with the style of coach you want to come in. I don’t think this team could play for an Andy Flower in the same way,’ he continued.
‘I don’t think Flintoff would do it, I think at the end of this World Cup, if England didn’t make a decision, I would encourage them to buy themselves some time because, like you say with Andrew McDonald, who’s not a massive name, you’ve got [Marcus] Trescothick, you’ve got Flintoff in the system.
‘They could get you through till the end of September and then it buys you some thinking time; buys you who is going to come out of that.
‘The thing that Andrew is you’ve got this larger-than-life character, but he is obsessed with cricket. He has got a great cricket brain. He understands more than anybody else.
‘And I love the fact that he’s with the Lions because he was a teenage superstar that was destined to play for England from the age of 15. So, he understands exactly what these young players are going through.’
