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The England head coach despised the moniker Bazball from its inception, considering it overly simplistic and perhaps foreseeing how it could be used as a weapon in the future. Right now, trailing 2-0 in an Test series in Australia that started with high hopes, it has turned into the subject of mockery from Australia.

However McCullum has contributed to the problem either. After the gut-wrenching defeat at the Gabba, his claim that, if anything, England were 'over-prepared' prior to the day-night Test was like attempting to extinguish a bin fire with gasoline. It could become his epitaph as England head coach if performances do not take an upturn.

On one level, one must admire his commitment to the bit. While he claims to ignore external noise, he will have been acutely aware of an England team increasingly characterised as carefree and underprepared.

The truth, as ever, is more nuanced. England enjoy golf just as much during their scheduled breaks as their opponents and they practice equally hard. Before the Gabba Test, they trained for longer, completing five days to Australia's three, due to their limited experience to the pink Kookaburra ball and the changes in lighting conditions.

The Question of Preparation and Practice

The coach's point about being "over-prepared" was that those additional training days were his decision – the instance he wavered in his conviction that less is more. It meant a Test match's worth of mental energy was expended before they even took the field in the intensity of Australia's stronghold. While net practice are a opportunity to iron out technique, they can also become a safety blanket; low-pressure work that mainly maintains the reflexes sharp.

Fixtures are tight such that pre-series state games were not possible (and no guarantee, as shown by England playing three before the 5-0 series loss in 2013-14). More difficult to justify is the dismissal of county championship cricket as a worthwhile exercise more broadly, evidenced by Jacob Bethell's unproductive season.

Match Shortcomings and Strategic Lack of Evolution

Match practice alone hardens cricketers for the various scenarios they walk out to face, and it is here where England have thus far fallen well short. It is not only with the bat – harrowing as some of the decision-making has been – but an attack that seems without a spearhead. None has demonstrated the patience or control that the otherworldly Mitchell Starc and his teammates have delivered.

McCullum's free-spirit approach was freeing during its first 12 months, an excellent, apt remedy to eradicate the lethargy that preceded it. The frustration now stems from how it has apparently not evolved past that point – an absence of an second phase to the initial philosophy that has seen results decline to an even record from their most recent matches.

Player Spotlight and Selection Dilemmas

Among them is Jamie Smith, a gifted player, undoubtedly, but one who is being constantly tested on each side of the bat and missed two crucial opportunities as wicketkeeper. It probably does not help when your opposite number, the Australian keeper, has just produced a masterful display.

Going by the coach's comments in the aftermath, England appear set to persist with Smith in Adelaide. The hope – similar to the broader situation – is that a switch to a more familiar Test setting triggers his best, with Perth's trampoline surface and the unfamiliar floodlit Test now out of the way.

Another option is to implement the plan discovered during the victorious series in New Zealand 12 months ago by shifting Ollie Pope down to his preferred position as a busy No. 5 or 6, handing him the gloves, and selecting a new No 3. Bethell made some runs for the Lions recently, or maybe an all-rounder could perform a comparable function to Moeen Ali in 2023.

Ultimately, these changes is ideal, however Australia's superior basics having destroyed pre-series optimism and forced the broader philosophy into the harsh glare of scrutiny.