Steven Finn on why Brendon McCullum and Jos Buttler are an ideal combination

That same year I had worked on a slower ball delivered from the side of the hand. I would pinch the ball between my middle finger and ring finger, roll my middle finger down the inside of the ball and it would loop up, all while keeping my arm speed the same. At least that was the plan.

It’s a hard delivery to control and I was a player who liked to feel like I was in control of what I was doing all the time. The unknown of letting a ball come out of the side of my hand made me nervous.

I worried about it in my sleep, but McCullum made it sound so simple. He fully supported me when he tried the ball in a game and reinforced the point that he didn’t care what happened.

The first time I tried it in a game was against Gloucestershire at Uxbridge. McCullum had actually left at this point in the season but had been heading towards me throughout the competition to try the new slower ball.

I bowled the slower ball into the pitch and the batter was way too early through the shot. The next ball I bowled a pace-on shorter ball and the batter was caught behind by the glove.

It was the earlier delivery that planted the seed of doubt in the batsman’s mind as to whether it could be a slower ball or not and that gave me the wicket. I took 4-24 to be man of the match.

It’s not that McCullum doesn’t care about the result. He does, passionately. But after playing the game, he knows that you have a much better chance of succeeding and committing to what you’re doing if you’re relaxed. This is the basic premise of his coaching, one that will suit Buttler and this England team.