Darren Gough has said Brendon McCullum was very lucky to keep his job after England’s 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia, warning that the national side still needs more steel. The former England fast bowler also said he was left hurt after missing out on the national selector role to Marcus North.
England kept McCullum and red-ball captain Ben Stokes in place ahead of the three-Test series at home to New Zealand, despite a bruising 2025/26 Ashes campaign. Gough, who took 467 international wickets and is 55, said on The Overlap’s Stick to Cricket show that he thought McCullum was “realistically very lucky to carry on as England’s head coach.”
He backed the way England play but said it has to be tempered. “It didn’t happen but I wish them the best of luck. I like the way they play but it needs toning down a bit. We need a bit of steel and I’d like to think we’ll see that this summer,” he said. Gough added that the pressure on McCullum and Stokes was justified. “Absolutely. They’re under pressure and they should be, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said.
The comments land at a time when England are trying to recover from a heavy Ashes loss and reset before the New Zealand series gets under way. McCullum and Stokes remain the public face of that reset, but the defeat in Australia has sharpened scrutiny of how England are being run and whether the balance between aggression and control has been lost.
Gough’s frustration also ran deeper than the coaching debate. He said he was disheartened when the ECB chose former Australia batsman Marcus North as national selector instead of him. Gough had previously worked as Yorkshire’s managing director of cricket, and he said the role would have suited his experience across the domestic and international game.
“I was disheartened. I’ll be honest, it did hurt me,” he said. “I could have challenged them in the right areas.” Gough said his view was that someone with England playing experience who had also done all the roles in the game might have been the right fit, adding: “My honest opinion was, if they went down the route of someone who’d played for England, who has done all the roles in the game, I might just get this.”
He also questioned whether the ECB’s stated aim of bringing England cricket and county cricket closer together was being achieved. “This is a hard role because there’s a lot of repair job to be done,” he said, before arguing that the appointments had not narrowed the gap. “I don’t think they are because we’ve got a Kiwi coach and we’ve now got an Australian selector,” he said. “I don’t think that’s brought the game closer to the county game at all. I do think there’s a big, big repair job there.”
That is the tension now hanging over England’s summer. The team has kept faith with McCullum and Stokes, but one of the country’s most recognisable former players has publicly argued that the structure around them is still not right. The next few weeks will show whether the message inside the dressing room matches the one being heard outside it.
