It is the misjudged ramp shot by a champion that has brought into question the cult of ‘Bazball’ as England seek to keep alive an intriguing Test series against India.
The subject of intense debate since its inception just under two years ago, the conversation surrounding the merits of England’s aggressive approach has been on steroids since Joe Root’s ill-feted shot against Jasprit Bumrah in Rajkot last week sparked a collapse.
Opinions have been offered at the same rapid tempo and ferocity with which Zak Crawley has approached his duties as an opener for England ahead of the fourth Test of the series in Ranchi beginning Friday.
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Ex-Australian captain Ian Chappell slammed ‘Bazball’ as “bulls***”. Former Indian opener Kris Srikkanth described England’s approach as “overhyped”.
One senses Michael Clarke, another former Australian captain, agrees with both of those opinions after noting he had played alongside greats who always attacked opponents and that an aggressive approach was scarcely unique to this English team.
Past English captains Nassar Hussein and Michael Vaughan expressed bewilderment at the commentary emanating from the Ben Stokes-captained team, lamenting Ben Duckett’s assessment that double-centurion Yashasvi Jaiswal had adopted the ‘Bazball’ style.
“This team, they come out with a lot of comments. Ben Duckett said the England team should take a bit of credit for the way Yashasvi Jaiswal has been playing,” Vaughan told foxsports.com.au.
“I am looking at that and thinking it is a bit smug to be saying that a player in the opposition is copying the way they play when he is an aggressive player in itself. They have got to be very careful that they are not being smug.”
Vaughan and Hussein are among the former players and pundits pondering whether England need to tinker with ‘Bazball, a philosophy named after their coach Brendon McCullum, and adopt a more calculated approach at the crease.
But Australian great Mike Hussey doubts there will be any change in their style for the final two Tests of the series as England, which are trailing 2-1, seeks to rebound from the record loss in Rajkot.
“I don’t think that loss is going to change the way they think about the game,” Hussey said.
“I think, in actual fact, that if they try to be more cautious, it might have a detrimental effect on the way they play. They’ve been so clear and so consistent with the way they want to play.
“If McCullum or Stokes start saying, ‘Oh, come on, we need to be a bit more careful now’, that might confuse the players. So I actually think, knowing McCullum and knowing Stokes, they’ll probably just try and go further the other way.
“I mean, it wouldn’t be the natural way for me to play, but I think it’s fantastic for the game and I hope they stick to it. And I know McCullum, and I know him well, and there’s no way he’s going to change his ways.”
In the aftermath of the 434 run loss in Rajkot, McCullum defended the performance of Root and Johnny Bairstow while guaranteeing England would continue to attack.
“That’s not a conversation we’ve ever had, because then you’re starting to put peripheral thoughts into guys’ minds and the whole idea is to free them up to allow them to make good decisions in the moment, to be totally present, and to be able to then adjust their games to be able to do so. To me that almost puts a limitation on what you can achieve,” McCullum said.
“Ultimately, if you’re going to beat India in India, you’ve got to be able to be good enough against every single one of their bowlers, regardless of if they are a man down or not. I wasn’t against the method that they took, that we went out there with. It obviously didn’t work on this occasion and we’re going to cop that sweet, but it might work next time.
“If you have got one crack at life, you may as well enjoy yourself and remain positive throughout things. There’s lots of people who see the grey sky, not the blue. And to me, that’s not necessarily how you go about things, and it’s certainly not how you want to play as a cricket team when you’ve got this much talent that sits among it.
“Yes, we will get it wrong at times. Guys in their own way will process that and be able to smooth out some of those rough edges. But a general conversation among the group about, ‘we didn’t do this right, we need to do this next time’ (is) detrimental to what you’re trying to achieve and you need conviction in your methods.
“We’ve got to cop this one sweet but we look forward to the opportunity.”
TIME FOR ENGLAND TO SMARTEN UP
Vaughan does not dispute England’s approach under McCullum, who was appointed to the role in 2022, has been largely successful while also providing a shot in the arm for Test cricket.
But he does wish they were playing smarter cricket, saying England’s batters needed to be able to shift gears when necessary to better adapt to the circumstances of a match.
He believes the tourists missed a trick by throwing away wickets cheaply when the absence of Ravichandran Ashwin midway through the Rajkot debacle left the Indian attack a man short.
Vaughan said their reckless approach was similar to the way they failed to make the most of Nathan Lyon’s injury-forced exit from the pivotal Lords Test in last year’s Ashes series.
“England are not going to change and I don’t think they are being smart enough if they don’t realise that, in the last year or so, they have had some great moments to go and nail a couple of good teams,” he said.
“The Ashes was the perfect example. Looking at that Lords’ Test match and as soon as Nathan Lyon hobbled off, they did not get enough runs and they went two-nil down. If they had won that game, which they should have done, I think they would have won the Ashes. And that is what it is about. Winning trophies.
“Here in India on Day 3, Ashwin had gone home and it was not sure whether he was coming back … and at that time on Day 3, he was not going to bowl in England’s first innings. Yet they get bowled out. They made the same mistakes and have not learned from what they did at Lord’s a year ago.
“I really enjoy the way England plays. They are the most exciting team in the world to watch. Everyone is talking about them. But if they want to be a really, really good Test match team, they have got to learn from mistakes of the past, rather than just ignoring them and saying, ‘It is just the way that we play’.
“If it is just the way that we play, I think really good teams will always find a way of putting them under pressure, particularly in a five match series.”
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Hussein believes England has the capacity to make adjustments, saying they did exactly that when fighting back to square the Ashes series against Australia 2-all.
“Whatever they are saying in public and in that dressing room, I hope they are going back to their rooms (to) do a little bit of self-introspection, like ‘I can look back and learn and make improvement’” he said on Sky Sports.
“Otherwise, it becomes a cult, doesn’t it? At times, ‘Bazball’ in this regime has been described as a cult where you cannot criticise either within or externally.
“(But) even in this regime, there is room for learning and improving. I can go back to the Ashes series and I reckon they (England) changed (strategy).”
England swept an away series against Pakistan and, aside from drawing with Australia, defeated both New Zealand and South Africa at home with their attack-at-all-costs approach.
Vaughan is certain England has the capacity to switch gears because he has seen them do it while bowling and fielding.
“I look at them in the field and I think they’re very smart in the field. They go up and down in the gears very nicely,” he said.
“Ben Stokes is a wonderful captain who knows when to attack and when to … go on the defensive and I just want them to take that approach to their batting.
“Attack when you can. But there are times in Test match cricket, number one, when you don’t have to. And, number two, when it is not possible too.
“I just want England to just learn from a few of their mistakes in the last two Test matches particularly.
“I (still) think India are there for the taking with the likes of Virat (Kohli), Mohammed Shami and Rishabh Pant all not playing. England could certainly do something in the last two Test matches. But they won’t if they don’t play smarter.”
OR IS IT BETTER TO STAY THE COURSE?
Hussey does not believe changing tack, or hitting the brakes on ‘Bazball’, is necessarily the right move midway through a series and said a knee-jerk reaction to a bad loss is never wise.
“I mean, they are not the first team and they will certainly won’t be the last team to get skittled in the fourth innings in India,” he told foxsports.com.au.
“It’s happened a lot in the last 20 to 30 years.”
The Fox Cricket expert, who heads to India midway through next month as the batting coach for the Chennai Super Kings, understands there is method to what looked like madness in Rajkot.
“I understand the theory. I’m more of a conservative but I understand the philosophy,” he said.
“The philosophy is that if it is difficult conditions and you just try and stand there and bat properly, you might be able to hang in there for a while, or you might be able to eke your way to 200, so why not just tee off and get 250 and get the game moving on a bit quicker and give your bowlers a bit more time to bowl them out.
“Sometimes if you’re really aggressive, you can put the pressure back on the bowler and you get away with a little bit more because the field spreads a little bit more. So it has its pros and cons.
“I mean, it is high risk, and there’s going to be days where it’s not going to work. But there’s going to be other days when it actually really comes off and it’s exciting to watch.”
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It is a point made by Clarke, who was admittedly bemused by England’s claim they are the first to bat with aggression have played alongside Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden, among other Australian stars.
“Playing in India is tough. You can sit there and block (but) you are going to get one with your name on it,” he told ESPN.
“You might try a reverse sweep and you might hit it straight to backward point. It’s just the way the game goes.
“I think people need to be realistic and understand, as a batsman, your job is to score runs and there have been plenty of great players and plenty of teams around the world scoring plenty of runs against good opposition.
“England is not the first team to play aggressively or bat positively.”
Hussey said England ran the risk of confusing their batting order if they encouraged caution, pointing out that Australian star Mitch Marsh had enjoyed great success since being given rein to play with freedom by his captain Pat Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald.
“I think that’s the secret to batting. It is which players you pick who can bat in that fashion,” he said.
“I like listening to Usman Khawaja talk about betting because he says, you know, ‘I can play a long innings (but) I can play an aggressive innings’. He just plays the situation more. But the basic principles of batting are still the same. It is about clearing your mind, letting your instincts take over.
“At certain stages, Usman being a more conservative type, his instinct might be that I’ve got to sit here for a little bit. Whereas maybe a Zak Crawley, his instinct is that if the (pitch) is doing a lot, ‘I’m going to try and get them before they get me’.
“He is still coming in with a clear mind and a clear plan on how he wants to go about it. But he’s just doing it in different ways.”
WILL ‘BAZBALL’ STACK UP IN THE LONG RUN?
Will ‘Bazball’ stand the test of time? And will it still be England’s preferred method by the time they arrive in Australia for the next Ashes series at the end of 2025?
Despite the shocker last week, to date England has performed well. But in an exceptionally busy 2024, they have a further 14 Test matches to play this year.
Former Indian opener Kris Srikkanth, speaking on his YouTube channel, pondered whether the approach will continue to stack up.
“I think of this ‘Bazball’ and all that are theories that they propagated, where has it worked? Did it work in the Ashes?” he said.
“Frankly speaking, no strategy can work if they continue playing like this. There was so much hype about this ‘Bazball’ theory. To back up all that talk, I think they needed the skill to bat in these conditions. You need the talent to bowl.
“I don’t think it will work in the long run, (to) just go there and try and hit every ball. I think Brendon McCullum can bat like that. Ben Stokes can bat like that. (But) not everybody can do that successfully. Sometimes, you need to adapt. I feel it’s overhyped. That’s my feeling. I may be wrong.”
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Vaughan has no doubt that regardless of what unfolds over the next two Tests, England will continue to go on the attack under McCullum and Stokes.
And he is confident England has the ability to upset Australia in the next Ashes series provided they field a bowling attack capable of delivering extreme speed.
“I’ll say this. No matter what happens in the India series, I don’t think it will have any reflection on what happens in the Ashes. Vice versa, when Australia lost to India heavily in India last year, it had no outcome on the Ashes, because the conditions are completely different,” he said.
“I do believe with Ben Stokes as captain and Baz McCullum as coach, whatever happens during the next year and a half, and I think we will win a lot of games, but I think England will be in a good position to to put a huge amount of pressure on Australia as long as we’ve got bowlers who can bowl quickly.
“If we don’t have three or four bowlers who we can rotate over five matches who can bowl 85 miles an hour (and) if we don’t have two of those in every team, I don’t think we can win the Ashes.
“But if we do and we can keep them fit, I do think this way of playing and the way that they bat could put Australia on the back foot, as it did in last year’s Ashes series.”