McCullum guarantees ‘galvanised’ England after Bairstow controversy
Bairstow was out stumped by Alex Carey throughout a dramatic last day of the Second Test at Lord’s, the Australian ‘keeper taking a shy at the stumps as his English counterpart wandered out of his ground wrongly assuming the ball had been called dead.
Australia were booed off by large sections of the Lord’s crowd after which confronted by MCC members within the Long Room as they left the sector for lunch, with England captain Ben Stokes claiming afterwards that he would have withdrawn the attraction have been the shoe on the opposite foot.
Asked whether or not the incident would have an effect on the spirit between the 2 groups for the remainder of the collection, McCullum stated: “I imagine it will affect it, I think it has to.
“In the end, they made a play, they’ve got to live with that, we would have made a different play but that’s life.”
Australia went on to win the sport by 43 runs regardless of an epic innings of 155 by Stokes, which means England go to Leeds 2-0 down within the collection.
Only one aspect – Donald Bradman’s Australia of 1936/37 – have managed to come back again from such a deficit to win 3-2, however McCullum believes England can use the frustration with Sunday’s occasions to sharpen their focus.
“I don’t know if it’s anger, but the unit is galvanised,” he added. “There are times as a coach where you’ve got to reduce emotion because it’s going to bubble over and you can make poor decisions, there’s times when you allow emotion to go because it’s going to galvanise the unit.
“That’s what I felt this emotion did for the side. I looked around the group and the guys were a little upset. If that helps us to win those key moments in the next Test, then I’m all for it.”