Is Bazball a cult or a philosophy? It’s an important distinction ahead of this week’s Lord’s Test, following as it does the England side’s recent habit of following bold victory with abject defeat.
If you didn’t know, cults typically form around strong, charismatic leaders; demand unquestioning loyalty; and manipulate the behaviour of their members. Philosophies, on the other hand, encourage dialogue, free thinking and the occasional questioning of those in charge.
You can make your own mind up as to the proportion of each which prevails currently within the team, but there is an inflexibility of strategy and method in the current series against India that has made Ben Stokes’ England seem like a cult, and a worryingly predictable one at that.
This is how it goes. Prepare unyielding, shirtfront pitches; set toy-town boundary sizes to aid scoring rates; bowl first when you win a handy toss even when batting looks the sensible call; watch your opponent rack up mountains of runs; then chase whatever they make as if it was a straightforward proposal.
Except that it isn’t, not when India score the first-innings’ totals they have been – 471 at Leeds and 587 in Birmingham. England may have brought off a great heist in that first Test, where they chased down 371 in the fourth innings after India had dominated most of the match, but they failed in the next at Edgbaston, India having increased the large amount of runs they scored at Headingley by more than a hundred.
England’s stated refusal to play for draws makes a nice soundbite of intent but it is naive. In this last Test, the draw was their only option to avoid defeat after India stretched their lead to 608 runs following an epic performance from Shubman Gill, India’s captain, after he alone made 430 runs in the match.
Yet none of England’s batters except Joe Root prioritised defence, as if the challenge of batting out 106 overs on a still reliable pitch (the overs left in the match when England began their second innings) without scoring at four runs an over was mission impossible.
As worrying as the defensive techniques of England’s batters was the lack of bite from their bowlers. Even without their main man, Jasprit Bumrah, who was rested, India’s leather-flingers completely out bowled England’s, though maybe that should not come as a surprise.
Playing on flat, nothing pitches is what they do back home in Mumbai and Delhi, so they are better prepared for such surfaces, as Akash Deep showed.
Using the old-fashioned virtues of hitting the seam on an awkward line and length, Deep took ten wickets – which makes it a mystery as to why he was overlooked for the opening Test.
The kind of seam bowler most counties used to have in abundance, Deep varied his angle on the crease, but otherwise just nagged away in a fashion only Chris Woakes, in England’s current attack, has the concentration and repeatable action to emulate. Unless, that is, they give Essex’s Sam Cook another go.
At 36, and without much recent cricket, Woakes may be rested for Lord’s, a ground where his record exceeds even that of Sir James Anderson. Indeed, many feel there could be a total refresh among England’s pace bowlers for the third Test now that Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson are in the squad.
A fit and firing Archer, as he was in 2019, is a massive asset, but can he reach that level of performance after the ailments (stress fractures to elbow and back) which have kept him from Test cricket for four years? Nobody knows. Also, his presence in the last few Indian Premier Leagues means there is no mystique around him, a powerful psychological force when peddling pace and fire.
Neither he nor Atkinson (injured during the one-off Test versus Zimbabwe seven weeks ago) have many match miles in their legs, which is a risk in a series where games have so far lasted until the final session of day five. Also, the forecast is for a hot week.
That and another dead pitch will mean a large workload for somebody to shoulder. In the past Stokes has done much of that donkey work but his recent injuries mean he needs to be looked after as much as Archer and Atkinson. But you cannot spread the cotton wool everywhere.
One answer may be to inject a bit of spice into the Lord’s pitch, which means getting the hosepipe out between now and Thursday (something Gill is expecting following his comments after Edgbaston about dead surfaces destroying the essence of the game).
But with Bumrah certain to return, and with Deep and Mohammed Siraj also a threat when the ball moves about, a lively pitch risks exposing Bazball’s batters to that trickiest of things for them, knowing where neutral is and having more than one gear. Rediscover that and suddenly there is more than one way to win a Test – and that is a philosophy.
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