Brendon McCullum praises Pakistan’s spin mastery, calls England’s loss a ‘missed opportunity'

England head coach Brendon McCullum accepted his sides missed opportunity after Pakistans 21 series win in Multan and RawalpindiBrendon McCullum remained magnanimous but acknowledged that his side despite a historic 800plus firstinnings total in the opener faltered as Pakistan overhauled their lineup and capitalized on turnheavy pitchesFollowing a ruthless innings win on Multanrsquos flat deck Pakistan with a refreshed selection panel introduced spinning surfaces that saw Sajid Khan and Noman Ali share 39 out of 40 English wickets Their bowling transformed the series dismantling England for just 814 runs across four innings turning the tide sharply in Pakistanrsquos favourCredit to Pakistan the way that those two spinners bowled was superb Brendon McCullum told Sky Sports I thought they varied the pace beautifully Noman from one end taking pace off most of the time with the occasional fast one and Sajid flipping that around and putting pace on with the occasional slow one I thought was great partnership bowling And our guys werent able to sustain the pressure unfortunatelyWhen teams come to England ideally we play on the surfaces that were more accustomed to which allow our strengths to really flourish and maybe paper over some of the weaknesses as well which every team naturally has said McCullumEnglands batsmen Ollie Pope Zak Crawley and Harry Brooks low run revealed their inadaptability under pressure Brook who shone in the first test failed to perform later as his highest score was only 26 runs from the last four inningsAlso ReadFor us to achieve this for the first time is indescribable Glenn Phillips on NZs Test series win in IndiaIm a little bit surprised its taken Pakistan as long as it has Because when you go to Sri Lanka India and Bangladesh the ball is always going to turn What we had here a couple of years ago or in that first Test match where it was pretty flat was a different challenge Itll be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether they persist with these types of services but certainly there are no excuses from our point of view We had our chances and we ran second the England head coach Brendon McCullum saidFurther Brendon McCullum admitted that his sides batting unit failed to adapt to the conditions and the hosts played on their strengths He also accepted that English spinners Shoaib Bashir and Jack Leach failed to replicate Pakistans spinners successIts pretty much the same batting group that came here two years ago and were outstanding in these conditions and its the same batting group that put on 800 in the first Test match McCullum said As the conditions changed we were presented with different challenges and we werent quite able to adapt to those challenges And thats a missed opportunityI have no doubt and the skipper has no doubt that the batting group that weve now had together for the best part of 18 months is the best that weve got he added Were very confident weve just got to make sure we keep allowing guys to develop them and keep becoming the players that they want to become and will benefit from that he addedReflecting on the lessons learned Brendon McCullum added Youre always trying to improve but youve got to be really careful that youre not seeking perfection because it doesnt exist in an inconsistent game The game we play is going to come with periods where its not going how you want it to but youve still got to hold firmWe will be confronted with spinning conditions at some stage in the future and we hope that some of the lessons good and bad that weve had throughout this series will give us a bit more of a base to be able to be successful he saidWith IANS Inputs