In contempt: How Bazball died

We’re going to need a smaller urn.

There was time when England's bold new approach to Test cricket seemed charmed. Paradigms shifted on a bash of Jonny Bairstow's bat, on a tap of Brendan McCullum and Ben Stokes' temples. There were the fourth innings chases in 2022, the assault on Pakistan, the strike rates borrowed from shorter formats, the belief that positivity unlocked everything.

But, somewhere along the way it faded. Hubristic declarations, slogging earlier in an innings, an aversion to practice. Innovation ceded to stubbornness. Where once we had nighthawks, now the great cricketing project can’t bat through a night. Or a day.

Above all, what marks the final stages of Bazball is its contempt. For the opposition, for the ‘has beens’, for the world test championship, for county cricketers forced to play stultifying rounds with a Kookaburra that an undercooked England side couldn’t be bothered to schedule warm up games with, for supporters waking up early or spending huge amounts of money to follow the team. For practice. And because of all that, for themselves too, in a sad way.

This talented team have denied themselves the chance to show greatness. By refusing to adapt, to learn, to improve, to consider their fallibilities, to countenance a plan B, they have eschewed so many of the elements that make cricket memorable, lost series that could have made them immortal.

The greats of the game have always recognised that storms come, have equipped themselves to survive and then, in calmer climes, to thrive. AB de Villiers is remembered not just as someone who could blister record breaking hundreds but also someone who could batten down the hatches to score 33 off 220 balls to save a match.

What’s stranger is that in the early days of the regime, before Bazball believed its own hype, England seemed to understand that too. Jonny Bairstow belted sixes at Edgebaston in that heady chase, but he only attacked the bad balls, was willing to bide his time at 12 off 47, to make the bowlers overpitch or dig it in short.

Three years on though, this England team are climate deniers, flat earth bullies.

Coach Marcus Trescothick’s admission that at no point have they discussed the dangers of driving on the up in Australia is simply astonishing. Like a quarterback not watching tape of a secondary but insisting on throwing deep balls every time.

Test cricket, this team do not seem to grasp, is a novel, as Sophie Ridge recently put it. And yet this team’s script is all car chases, shootouts and one-liners. There’s no room in this vision of cricket for subtext, character development, the introspection, the sense of a character arc that makes for truly great reading.

Of course, England are not alone in playing brainless shots, not even the only side on this tour guilty of it. But they are the only ones who seem to pat themselves on the back for doing so. Nobody wants cowering or self-flagellation, the sort of doubt and pain that was evident on Jos Buttler's face on the last tour . But a little hint that it matters, that they might remain open to ways of improving would be nice.

And so, for all it might have died here, under Mitchell Starc’s surgical hand on the well-lit operating table at the Gabba, we also have to pray that Bazball does not offer us a glimpse of the future. Bury it well lest it rise again. Build a mortsafe over the tomb. Because in some ways, Bazball is, was, a breathing example of the worst trend in sport, the pursuit of the non-fan by betraying the current fan. This was evident first in England’s disdain for the draw. Real cricket fans understand the joy of the third result, Atherton and Russell denying South Africa, Monty and Jimmy in Cardiff.

Yes, England needed to banish the spineless kind of draws it had got used to, exemplified by the non-attempt to chase 273 to beat New Zealand in 2021. But they have gone the other way. Porridge once chillblain-inducing is now lava hot. Still inedible.

It is hard to see where England look for a Goldilocks though. As Captain, Harry Brook has shown none of the ability to recognise game state and pick a moment that this squad desperately needs. England’s most balanced player is Joe Root but it’s time to let Joe bat, to do nothing but chase down Sachin’s record and win England test matches by doing that, to set a mark that will be both joy and melancholy, the pride of watching the completion of a great body of work, the pain of knowing it will likely never be beaten. The previous vice captain Ollie Pope’s place will be too precarious under any new regime. No bowler has a guaranteed spot.

On the coaching side, McCullum is becoming increasingly intransigent. His assertion after going 2-0 down, after taking several days off between tests, that if anything they practiced too much, were words of a man more interested in provoking severance pay than in a period of introspection followed by a change of approach. If, as seems clear, he is unwilling to do that, and to do that in public, then England’s search need not leave Australian shores. Ricky Ponting played in a side that found the balance between attack and defence better than any to have played the game. A side that understood when to push the tempo and when to knuckle down. A side who would have seen in Perth the weakness of Australia’s attack and seen Starc off, just as they would have identified Lyon’s injury in 2023 as the moment to put the hammer down not get complacent. Just as they would have known how to finish the job when 70-odd away from the chase with seven wickets in hand against India in the summer. The ECB should be banging his door down begging him to temper the worst instincts and unleash the best of this talented England team.

None of this is to argue that Bazball hasn’t had its moments, that there aren’t kernels of truth contained in its philosophy. The freeing up of players who were overburdened by pressure clearly succeeded for a time. The regime promoted talents like Ben Duckett, Harry Brook and Jamie Smith who will be huge parts of whatever comes next. It succeeded in managing playing time to get its limping army of fast bowlers to Australia. Stokes has shown in his captaincy of Shoaib Bashir how England should manage spinners in the field.

Bazball won a series on pitches in Pakistan that traditional cricket would have let lapse into the dull kind of draw. It has redefined what is chaseable in the fourth innings. Even the golf gets much more stick than it should. England should be given credit for finding ways to make touring more enjoyable and rewarding. These are young men sacrificing time with their families, putting themselves under the spotlight. It is beneficial both for them, and for fans invested in their success, for them to find time to unwind, for cricket to remain something that brings them joy.

For all of these things, the Bazball approach deserves credit.

And yet, it must also now be accepted that it is not a winning approach when the challenge is at its sharpest. Non-competitive in India and now Australia, drawing very winnable home series against the same opponents. Throwing away tests routinely from positions of strength. Persisting in poor selections like Bashir and Crawley.

To think, as England often do, of golf, this is a team capable of outrageous eagles, of shooting -30 to win tournaments, but it is not a team built to fight in high winds, to shape the ball to needs of the course, to grind out scores on a tough layout. And that is what it takes to build a team capable of winning all around the world.

If you look for them, green shoots are there, the pragmatic switch from Bashir to Will Jacks, who looks to have the mentality to succeed at test level, the digging in of Stokes and Jacks at the Gabba. It was too late then, for the match, for the Ashes probably, but it shows a way forward.

English cricket hasn’t died again. Just this vision of it. And probably, that’s for the best.