England have sought the advice of cricket coach Brendon McCullum ahead of their Autumn Nations opener against Australia at Twickenham.
Steve Borthwick’s side take on the Wallabies this weekend in the first of four internationals to round off 2025.
The defeated 2019 World Cup finalists are on a seven-game winning streak that stretches back to the Six Nations.
The last time they tasted a loss was against Ireland in a 27-22 defeat at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Now, the players take to the international stage again, but with some advice of a different kind heading into the weekend.
Borthwick and his backroom staff have sounded out Three Lions head coach McCullum and his assistants in Manchester, with McCullum synonymous with the new “Bazball” mentality, a gung-ho approach in cricket, that he has crafted alongside captain Ben Stokes.
McCullum himself is preparing his own England side for the Ashes next month, with the Three Lions looking to win the urn Down Under for the first time since 2011.
Richard Wigglesworth, England’s former scrum-half and now defence coach, admired the mentality that McCullum had shown since his appointment back in 2022.
"We talked about loads of stuff and there was a lot of mindset stuff," he said.
"I asked Brendon how he changed that in English cricket, which was really interesting. Then we got into the technicalities of coaching someone one-on-one, what that looks like, his role as head coach in that versus his assistants.
"We sat for a good period of time and took loads from it. They're on to a good thing."
Meanwhile, the cricket team will play five Test matches as they look to regain the Ashes for the first time since they won in Australia a decade ago.
"They'll go out and give it a great dig - as English teams who are playing against Australia want to - and hopefully we stick one on the board on Saturday.”
