It has been a dreadful six weeks for Brendon McCullum. A 7-1 drubbing in India followed by a group exit in the Champions Trophy is a worrying start to an Ashes year.
With England's next challenge a five-Test home series against India, there will be no respite.
There never is for an England coach, but it is the same for Australia and India and they have one coach overseeing both teams. The winners of the last two global tournaments? Australia and India. The best two Test teams in the world (even though they are not contesting the World Test Championship final)? Australia and India. We can make excuses for McCullum, that it is tough to combine roles, but England are as well resourced as Australia and India with a deep pool of players that he has not dipped his rod into. Myopia gripped selection in the white-ball team.
New Zealand is a small country that has to make the most of its talent, picking players for multiple formats, building a tight, cohesive unit. But with England, McCullum benefits from 26 players on highly paid central contracts and a further three on developmental deals. Then there are the Lions under Andrew Flintoff and several players, such as James Vince and Liam Dawson, not on contracts playing in franchise leagues.
But McCullum has stuck with those he knows from the Test side, pinned everything on pace and going hard. England's greatest success during the Eoin Morgan years was based on skill with the ball and gradual acceleration with the bat. Jofra Archer was the ace card in 2019, but Morgan's attack for four years was built on the variety of Chris Woakes, Liam Plunkett and David Willey. Mark Wood was shock value but there is no shock in a battery of repetitive right-arm fast bowlers.
After England were hammered in the third Test in Hamilton before Christmas, when they picked a tired attack, McCullum admitted he had to be better at managing workloads. But the same mistakes have been made. Wood did not have to play six out of eight matches on the India tour. Predictably he is now injured - him limping at the crease in the final throes of the Champions Trophy was so predictable. Brydon Carse has enjoyed a magnificent start to his England career but has been bowled into the ground.
He was dead on his very sore feet after winning the New Zealand series in Wellington. He stood on the side of the outfield after the game clutching a beer with his feet in flip fops and plasters everywhere. But yet England picked him again the following week in Hamilton. It may have had a lingering effect. He has faded on this white-ball tour and, no surprise, is now injured, his feet finally requiring some treatment.
England's aura in white-ball cricket was spectacularly smashed in Ahmedabad in October 2023, when New Zealand dismantled them by nine wickets in the opening game of their 50-over World Cup defence.
Since then, their senior players have faded and can no longer summon up those winning performances under pressure that made their reputations. The younger players have not stepped up, believing the hype too much about the talent in English cricket before putting the results on the board, while Matthew Mott and McCullum made tactical and selection blunders.
Three ICC events in a row have passed England by. No coincidence that all three were in sub-continental style conditions: India in 2023, the wet season in the Caribbean in 2024 and now Pakistan. But England cannot be a team that only performs when conditions are in their favour. These players are well exposed to franchise tournaments around the world. But what global tournaments show is the throwaway nature of T20 leagues where there is little scrutiny. It is when playing for England that pressure cranks up and they can't stand the heat. Multiple-year central contracts have given some too comfortable a life and that never works in English cricket.
McCullum was supposed to lift the mood, lighten up Jos Buttler. But the captain's shortcomings were glaringly obvious for 18 months and at his age rebooting was too much to expect. Harry Brook impressed as captain against Australia at the end of last summer. But his form has dropped off. He looks tentative and that is a problem because he is the leading candidate to replace Buttler. He strikes me as a Stokes figure; a player who matures when given more responsibility. This tournament should have been his learning curve as captain, building his partnership with McCullum to the 2027 50-over World Cup in South Africa. It would have given McCullum a little bit of a free pass too because he was bedding in with a young captain. Instead the time has been wasted on Buttler while Brook has regressed.
The telling thing about the latest knockout by Afghanistan in Lahore was the lack of surprise. Once England fell behind you sensed what the end result would be.
You can accuse the Test team of being loose, throwing away winning positions, but they are never predictable.
Coaching both teams requires adaptability and McCullum needs time to sort out a mess. His specialism is picking up broken teams and lifting them. He did it when appointed New Zealand captain and then as England Test coach. But something is missing at the moment.