Brendon McCullum defends tactics and blames England defeat on bad luck

Brendon McCullum has insisted that England’s thrilling, narrow defeat against Australia in the first Ashes Test has not tarnished his team’s freewheeling approach to the game.

McCulllum said that despite sustaining the third defeat of his 14 matches as red-ball coach he had “had an absolutely amazing time”, and that it was only a bit of bad luck in key moments that denied them victory.

England’s head coach contends that the fact “everyone left entertained” means that, despite narrow defeat on the field, his approach once again proved a success. Sky’s viewing figures certainly suggest the game caught people’s attention, with its peak audience hitting 2.12 million, the highest they have ever recorded for a Test match, and an average audience across the fifth day of 1.17 million.

“Obviously you’d rather have won the game,” McCullum said, “but the way that we played, I think it’s validated our style of play. If we’d have got a little bit of the rub of the green then we might have been on the other side of it. I’m really proud of the boys to be honest.

“I thought their application to how we want to play right throughout was superb. A couple of things didn’t quite go our way at times, that’s the nature of the game, but we firmly believe, the skipper [Ben Stokes] and I, that this gives us our greatest chance.

“I would be very surprised if there was too many people who disagree with how we go about playing, because everyone was left entertained. You’re not always going to win and we understand that. We want to keep getting up and throwing punches as a team, and I’m really proud of the way the guys played.”

Though Stokes said in the moments after the game ended that his players were “in absolute pieces” and “devastated that we’ve