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Opinion
So I was sitting around as writers do, trying to find inspiration, when it hit me: “What about a thinkpiece on Bazball?” I said to myself. “THAT’s something fresh and new that the public are no doubt crying out for!”
But seriously folks … it’s been over a week since the remarkable Edgbaston Test reached its wonderful climax, and with the second Test about to start I feel compelled to put down some of the thoughts I’ve been having since Pat Cummins nudged that final boundary.
First of all, I have read that Brendon McCullum intensely dislikes the term “Bazball”, and on that, sir, I have to say I am with you one hundred percent. If I never heard the word again it’d be fine with me. But unfortunately it’s the most convenient shorthand we have for describing England’s new approach to Test cricket, so forgive me, I’m going to use it.
The debate around Bazball has two broad strands: firstly, its utility as a means for winning games of cricket, and secondly, its worthiness as a philosophy for changing the Test cricket landscape for the better – or “Saving Test Cricket” as some of its proponents have put it.
Now, on the former, I am quite well disposed towards Bazball. I hate the fact that England are good at cricket again, as I have always hated it when England are good at any sport, but facts cannot be denied, and right now the fact is Bazball is a strong strategy for a team that is, as they currently are, blessed with numerous talented batters of naturally aggressive bent, and a captain whose natural inclination is towards creative attack.
Pat Cummins celebrates after hitting the winning runs. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Bazball is not infallible, but it works. The present English playing group, allied with the McCullum-Stokes approach, is a formidable foe. If they win the second Test it wouldn’t be a surprise in the least, albeit that’ll also be the case if they lose.
But what of the second point? What of Bazball as an ideology, as opposed to just a sporting strategy?
Well, here we have, in my opinion, more of an issue. For Bazball, as the English team are selling it, will never “save Test cricket”. In fact if they stick to their current frame of mind it could help do the exact opposite.
A lot has been made of England’s relentlessly upbeat response to their loss in the first Test. To a certain extent, being cheerful and positive after a defeat can be a good thing. Certainly, taking sport too seriously can rob it of its joy and lead to depression and anxiety – it certainly does for me. The attitude of “it’s only a game” is a healthy one.
But there is “it’s only a game” and then there is “it’s not even a game”.
The response of England seems to have gone beyond the normal and admirable mindset of “ah, losing a cricket match isn’t the end of the world” into a surreal twilight world where they didn’t lose the cricket match at all, because unbeknownst to their opponents and everyone watching, they weren’t even playing cricket, they were playing a special game of their own devising, with secret rules that only they know, where the winner is determined not by runs or wickets or the rules of cricket at all, but by the question of who has most completely embodied the spirit of Bazball.
And since the spirit of Bazball is defined at all times by whatever the English say it is, the fact they won that particular game was probably not all that surprising.
What England have created here is a weird dynamic wherein Tests don’t matter, but they are simultaneously incredibly important. Winning or losing is irrelevant, but playing the right way is of monumental significance.
So the fact Australia won can be dismissed out of hand, as that is not the point of the game, but the fact that England were entertaining should draw standing ovations from us all, because that is the real raison d’etre of cricket.
McCullum told the players after the Test that “it feels like we won”? Of course it felt like they’d won – they had won. Not the game of cricket, of course – they’d lost that. They’d won the game of “does it feel like we won?”
And they did feel like they’d won, so therefore they did win, making the feeling that they’d won entirely justified. As Baz also said, “The way we played, it’s validated our style of play”.
In other words, the fact we played Bazball proves that we were right to play Bazball. When you go in with that mentality, it’s impossible to lose, because going in with that mentality means you’ve already won. Neat isn’t it?
But here’s the thing about that mentality: big freaking whoop.
You think you’re going to save Test cricket with Bazball? You aren’t. You can’t. Because if Bazball is more than just a determination to take risks, to play aggressively and with flair and to “move the game forward”, as commentators drearily insist on repeating ad nausem: if Bazball is in fact a resolution to declare that winning and losing are unimportant and entertainment is the number one priority…
Then you’re not revitalising Test cricket, you’re tearing it down.
Look at that first test. It was brilliant, wasn’t it? It was exciting, it was gripping, it was – absolutely, yes – entertaining. And it is 100% true, as the England camp avers, that their team’s approach was integral to that. Edgbaston wouldn’t have been the game it was without Bazball.
But it wouldn’t have been the game it was without Australia’s way of playing – should we call it Patball? No, we should not – either.
Stuart Broad appeals for the wicket of Steve Smith. (Photo by Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
You can talk all you want about how England play to entertain, but if their batters massacred Australia’s bowlers and racked up 500 on the first day, followed by their bowlers scything through the tourists like hot knives through butter, Edgbaston would’ve been a hell of a lot less entertaining.
At least, that is, by the standards used by the commentariat to declare it intensely entertaining in the first place: personally I have always found it endlessly entertaining to watch England get slaughtered and I am sure many English fans feel the same way re: Australia, but generally the pundits agree that a finish like Edgbaston is a better spectacle than watching one team get smeared across a field for three days.
If Edgbaston was a modern classic, it’s because Australia played the way they did every much as it is because England played the way they did.
But the point is larger than that. For if Edgbaston was a modern classic, it was also because, contrary to the Bazball party line, the result mattered.
That last day. The tension. The suspense. The desperation of both teams. The surge of emotion when a wicket fell or a boundary was struck. The immense roar of the crowd as Usman Khawaja chopped on, the agony and the ecstasy when that last ball rolled into the rope.
All of that did not come about because the teams were looking to put on a show. It happened because the teams were trying to win. With every muscle and sinew, with every beat of their heart and spark of their synapses, they were trying to win. And they were being watched by thousands in the ground and millions around the world who cared deeply, obsessively and beyond all reasonable sense of proportion about which team came out on top.
And without that, Edgbaston is not a classic. It’s not even a Test match. It’s an exhibition. Just a show.
Well, sport is more than just a show. It is entertainment, true, but it is entertainment that is dependent on caring about the result. If who wins and who loses doesn’t matter, frankly it’s more fun to watch Star Wars.
You think it’s brave to play the way England plays? It’s only brave if they care. You can’t have courage without fear. If the English batters don’t fear getting out, what’s to admire in the fact they take risks?
Pat Cummins celebrates. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Anyone who thinks that the thrill of watching a great innings lies only in the shots being played will never really get Test cricket. A run-a-ball century in a Test is more exciting than a hundred off 50 in a T20, because the Test batter fears getting out. He knows that he can make his position more secure by holding back, he knows that blazing away increases the chances of failure, of embarrassment, of being seen to let his team down. But he does it anyway, because he also knows that if it comes off he can bring the opposition to its knees.
The T20 batter? Well, he just knows that he’s out there to hit. And if he fails, well, nobody can blame him for trying – there was no other option.
There’s nothing brave in hitting out in a T20, and there’s nothing brave in Bazball … unless the Bazballer is feeling the fear but doing it anyway. If, after losing, they feel like they’ve won, then they’ve risked nothing at all by playing the way they do.
That’s why Bazball, at least according to its own disciples, can’t save Test cricket. Because Test cricket without the fear of losing isn’t Test cricket.
Nothing will expedite the irrelevance of Test cricket more effectively than convincing the public that the people playing it don’t care whether they win or lose. If all people want to see is an array of dazzling shots, they certainly don’t need Tests to satisfy that appetite.
But if they want to see games like what we got at Edgbaston, ah yes, THAT will require Test cricket. That will require the possibility of more than one way of playing the game. That will require players having to make decisions, constantly, about whether to take risks or play safe. That will require the exquisite, unbearable, nerve-shredding uncertainty about what each individual is going to do next when under the greatest pressure.
Most of all, that will require two teams who, although afterwards they might – and should – shake hands, smile and rejoice in the fact that it’s only a game and therefore an extremely nice way to make a living, are at the moment when battle is joined, utterly desperate to win and terrified of the alternative.
Or to put it another way: you don’t care? Then why should anyone?