Ashes 2023: England will go a little harder at Australia, says Brendon McCullum ahead of Lord’s Test

England head coach Brendon McCullum has launched a warning to Australia, stating they will go harder at the opposition in the second Ashes Test at Lord’s. The hosts lost the opening Test by two wickets at Edgbaston, Birmingham on Tuesday and they will be looking to bounce back stronger in the second game.

England continued with their aggressive approach in the first Test, with Zak Crawley smashing Pat Cummins to the boundary on the first ball of the Ashes 2023. Furthermore, Ben Stokes took a bold decision of declaring at 393-8 in the first innings even though Joe Root was batting unbeaten on 118.

Former New Zealand skipper feels if England could have the rub of the green on their side, they could have ended on the right side of the result.

Brendon McCullum said in an interview with BBC Sports, “I’m sure they’ll stick to that strategy, which is great, because we’ll go a little harder. The way that we played 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.”

McCullum added that the players are proud of their performances despite the narrow loss and they will go into the Lord’s with a lot of confidence behind them.

“The guys are proud of the efforts that they put in and I’m sure we’ll go to Lord’s with a lot of confidence. We always want to try to take the game forward. We want to try to seize opportunities where we think we can put opposition teams under pressure,” McCullum added.

On the other hand, England suffered a huge blow as Moeen Ali suffered a finger injury and McCullum is hopeful that the all-rounder should be fit before the second Test at the Mecca of Cricket. Ali took a total of three wickets in the opening Test.

“Moeen did a fabulous job. He’s loving being back playing Test cricket. Hopefully, he’ll come right for the next one. I’m pretty confident that over the next few days we can get on top of Mo’s finger and that’ll give us an opportunity to select him in the next game,” said McCullum.

The second Ashes Test will be played at Lord’s, from June 28 onwards.