You have just been humbled 4-0 in a five Test Ashes series. Saved a 5-0 drubbing by unseasonal Sydney rain. An ironic and miserable glimmer of joy. Joe Root, your captain, looks gaunt; a mediocre series average does not help.
Soon after you front up for a three Test tour of the Caribbean against the modern day easybeats of Test cricket. Root miraculously is keen for another tilt as head boy.
Seeking a vanilla confidence-building series victory, you are easily beaten by easybeats. Another wretched series defeat.
You gotta try something, right? A tweak here or a tweak there hasn’t worked for a generation or three and you are desperate. Why the hell not go for something radical?
The ECB announces a new leadership team. Christchurch’s favourite son, Ben ‘one punch’ Stokes, replaces Root as captain. With a total of two wickets and six runs in his last Test, he is deemed the right man for the job. Because, you know, it’s Stokes!
A new coach is also appointed. He too is of sound South Island stock. His name is Brendon McCullum. For simplicity, let’s call him Baz. He brings with him a new way to play Test cricket. For simplicity, let’s call it Bazball.
Bazball (or Sehwag Ball or Warner Ball or WTAF Ball) has two simple principles:
1. When in no doubt, swing hard
2. When in any doubt, swing harder
There are said to be no consequences for your actions under Bazball. Your place in the team is assured. Until it’s not.
Brendon McCullum, Head Coach of England (Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
You are encouraged to play your instinctive game. Think Joe Root ramping ball one on day four. You are encouraged to have fun or at least be seen to be having fun. Nothing says fun like an ill-fitting jaguar green bucket hat.
So how is it all going and what will become of it?
Well in 13 Bazball Tests to date, England haven’t lost a series and have won 10 out of 13 Tests or a 77% win rate. Creditable, especially if you consider in the ten years before Bazball the win rate was only 40%. So an excellent start it must (reluctantly) be said and enough for the English media and fans to (again) celebrate the second coming.
However, at 13 Tests the sample is small and none of those were against India and only one of those (the Edgbaston loss) was against Australia. Three of the 13 Tests were tight. England lost two of those. Happy days, but again small sample.
The true test of Bazball’s success will only be known in three or four years’ time when we have a bigger sample against a full cross section of Test playing teams, home and away. England’s 13 Bazball Tests so far compare with 66 Tests played in the five years prior.
So we should wait before jumping to conclusions.
Not so fast. This piece would not see the light of day without a wild conclusion to jump to. Here are four that you can throw in my face in 2027. Put it in the diary.
1. From a batting perspective, Bazball can only be a sustained success with multiple world class batsmen in the team. When two fail, there would be at least two others who can go big very quickly and under pressure.
Think the West Indies teams of the 1980s, the Australian teams of the 1990s and to a lesser extent, the Indian team during patches since 2008. This England team has one world class batsman – Joe Root.
2. From a bowling perspective, success is harder to gauge. Bowler behaviour likely won’t and can’t change materially under Bazball. What we can say is that when a team containing 4+ world class batsmen is complemented with at least one world class bowler (again, think West Indies 1980s, Australia 1990s) then the chances of Bazball succeeding improve.
Without a world class bowler, whatever exotic total your batsmen post won’t matter. This England team has no world class bowlers.
3. Is England saving Test cricket? No. England is trying to find a successful formula after micro-eras of success in the last four or five decades.
The T20 “you’re only as good as your last maximum” mindset has arrived in Test cricket and may attract new audiences. If every national team adopts the win or bust approach, crowds may stick around. But that will be a byproduct of Bazball and not its driving force.
4. Will England succeed? Not this England. Not unless they discover 2-3 more batsmen who can score runs in all conditions and have a sound enough technique to withstand what’s thrown at them.
Harry Brooks shows promise but by the time he and maybe others establish themselves, Root will be in the commentary box. Oh and they’ll need to discover a world class bowler.
An average team can’t become a good team just by swinging harder. You can’t fight mean reversion.
Bring on Lord’s.
JamesH
Roar Guru
Bairstow is not a world class test batsman. He is a destructive hitter who is enjoying the freedom to play with aggression on flat pitches, but an average of 37 in 91 tests doesn't lie. That's Nasser Hussain with a better strike rate. Only twice in his career has he averaged more than 35 in a completed calendar year.
BigGordon
Roar Rookie
The Aussies will certainly be confident of going 2 up. England appears to have another pitch they requested, though it's totally different from the last one. I reckon this might be a good toss for Cummins to lose assuming Stokes bats first. Mind you, with Bazball, he might put the Aussies in. They seem to like chasing in this format their using
matth
Roar Guru
the bowling workload is a real issue and is made worse by Jack Leach's injury. Bazball only works for the bowlers if there is a quality holding bowler who can take the strain off the others. Lyon would be perfect, but England can't have him!
Rellum
Roar Guru
England lost after having a pitch served up exactly how they requested it, winning the toss and playing at home, getting the best of the conditions and still lost. The only thing they can realistically claim as an excuse is the weakened bowling attack. Given Aus usually now uses the first two Tests as warm up games to get used to the conditions I think we are in with a great shout at a 2-0 lead in a weeks time
Some Guy
Roar Rookie
Claiming a Bazball victory against Ireland hardly counts so needs to be taken out of the stats, which means that the forgotten 1 against India keeps the win % the same. The other factor to keep in mind is that Bairstow is terrible behind the stumps and cost the Poms at least 3 wickets against Australia. He cost the team 98 runs and only made 78 with the bat so that's a negative 20 which would could been the difference??? Agree that England have few world class bowlers, most notably a spinner (will see how the young kid goes). Bazball has been successful because of it's shock factor, which mean teams have played differently against it. Prime example was the defensive fields Cummins set from over 1 which resulted in easy singles being picked off and then had fields being quickly changed when Root had success with an unconventional shot, which opened up the field for more conventional shots. The other example was how Khawaja fell in the 1st innings when Stokes set a field right out of the table top felt based game Test Cricket we played as a kid. Instead of playing a conventional shot by pushing forward (the ball would have struck him outside the line of off) and opening the face for easy runs behind square, he tried to play a fancy shot by exposing all his stumps and got out to rank ball from a foul mouthed muppet. Patience and soft hands was all that was required instead of trying to beat them at their own silly game. Once teams get over the shock of Bazball and cooler heads with better tactics prevail, we will see how long it lasts and how supportive the English crowds and press are when the losses start to rack up? That said, it certainly is entertaining to watch, especially when the test comes down to the final 28 balls for an Aussie win.
BigGordon
Roar Rookie
The bulk of games played in the Basball style have been in English type conditions, either in England or in New Zealand. I'm very keen to see how this works when England goes to India, for example. There's also a myth I think about Basball being all about the team as a whole, yet I haven't seen Bairstow do anything different behind the stumps, I haven't seen the bowlers do much different and even the field placings, apart from a few very different ones occasionally from Stokes, are pretty stock standard and when Khawaja was going, downright defensive. This series and the one in India will likely prove the success of these tactics. one way or the other
Rellum
Roar Guru
To me Bazball creation was just Baz and Stokes sitting around chatting, with Baz saying to Stokes, "You guys suck a Test Cricket". Stokes nodding. Then Baz, after a moments thought pipes up "You guys are great at One Day Cricket! Why don't we just do that in Tests?". A light bulb goes off in Stokes head "Genius!" To be real, their bowlers are what have made them successful in the last year, the fast but mid scores just allow them to bowl longer. I do like Stokes field settings compared to Cummins. We need to cut off the ones, let them try and hit boundaries, they are just going to declare at 400 anyway so there is little threat if they do go off once and a while.
Junior
Roar Guru
Yes, thank you. Realised after that there was a 14th Test vs India (the catch up game from 2021) that is not included in the calcs. England won that too giving them 11 out of 14 or 79% win rate.
Ben Pobjie
Expert
Also, minor pedantic point, but one of the 13 tests was in fact against India.
Ben Pobjie
Expert
They have three world class bowlers. It’s just that one is permanently injured and two are almost pensioners. And Bairstow is a world class batsman, Brook might be.
Graham
Roar Rookie
The one tactic I'd like to see us develop a plan for is the scoop shot. It just puts a fielder in no-mans land for an easy single. It's like you have 1 less fielder which you can't afford and at the moment the scoop is low risk a bit of a brutal tactic at amateurs, if someone scoops you can try and bowl full tosses aimed for the top of the stumps. So quite a bit fuller than the yorker length which can be awkward to play when crouching (and dangerous, which probably stops them scooping). Not sure if it would work at a higher level or how they'd feel about the morality of the tactic another option of course is to drop it a bit shorter, but that's probably not a wicket chance slower ball aimed at the top of the stumps might work too thoughts? I thought it was the one tactic that did get to us a bit and made it easier for root (whose average has shot up during the bazball era even against us. But like you say small sample size)
Derek Murray
Roar Rookie
Good read. Tough to suggest they have no world class bowlers. Broad has been outstanding over the last 2/3 years. Archer and Wood when fit. Even potty-mouth Robbo has a bunch of wickets at 21. No spinner and Anderson probably bowling a summer beyond when he should but otherwise no worse than Boland, Starc and Hoff in these conditions. The bowling isn't as weak as you make out. Harry Brook could be anything and Pope has scored a lot of runs in the 13 played under Baz. Bairstow has been outstanding. Stokes has won matches off his bat. They're not as good as they have looked on flat tracks against weak attacks but not terrible either. A big problem for them is the break their bowlers get between innings. Scoring your runs quickly moves the game along but, on flat tracks, the bowlers are asked to do a lot of work - on average 45 more overs per test than their opponents. That will tell. If Australia can keep that going over a 5 test series, they will be cannon fodder in the 4th and 5th tests. If we win or draw at Lords, we win the series.