But the last one year, since the arrival of Brendon McCullum as coach, has been anything but conventional for the England Test team. The textbooks have been ripped. There is no urge to play Test cricket like the world believes it should be played. There is no urge to settle for a draw; either you win, or we win. ‘Take no prisoners’ seems to be the philosophy.
When England captain Ben Stokes declared their innings on day one, he was just following that philosophy: be very determined and not care about other people’s feelings.
The very act of declaring an innings is inherently aggressive, a signal to the opposition that you have enough runs on the board to wrap up their innings. It is the confidence in the ability of your bowlers. It is not about taking refuge in the shadow of a huge score and then asking the opposition to be daring enough to go after it. Most of the teams do that, but not this England. They like to make things happen, instead of waiting for things to happen.
England had 393 on the board with six overs left in the day. The Australians were on the field for the whole day, watching their bowlers getting hammered all around the ground and most likely not expecting to be asked to bat. With Stuart Broad having a psychological edge over David Warner, four overs (two gets deducted for change of innings) at the fag end of the day had the potential of landing a fatal blow on the Australian batters’ morale.
Ultimately, it did not yield any results, but the situation was pregnant with possibilities. “The best teams are prepared to adapt and play situations in a way that’ll ultimately put them in a winning position more often than the rest, whether that’s by making bold declarations or playing reverse sweeps a lot, whatever it takes,” former South Africa captain AB de Villiers endorsed the ‘Bazball’, as the English approach is called, on twitter. Importantly, he noted: “The only way to make it impactful is to have a complete buy-in from every individual. No egos, no stats driven players, just a full-on buy-in to be the best team in the world. That is how I see the England team play atm [at the moment]. Also saw that with MSD and co. in the IPL.” But not everybody sees it that way. A British newspaper called the loss in the first Test “A Real Kick In the Bazballs”. Former England batter Geoffery Boycott wrote in his column for The Telegraph that “England are in danger of reducing the Ashes to an exhibition”. The criticism has been over the top considering the game was neck and neck till the last hour and the margin of loss was just two wickets. This sort of an all-out attack on unconventional ideas is not a post-Covid phenomena. Fifty-overs cricket was derisively called pyjama cricket; it went on to rule the cricket world for several decades.
Not long ago, Twenty20 cricket was termed tamasha; today it is financing world cricket. Virender Sehwag was not considered a ‘Test’ batter for not moving his feet enough; he ended up among only the four batters in history to have scored two triple centuries. There are many more such examples, but the point here is that creating/starting something new in a world deeply steeped in the past and traditions always invites criticism.
It is incumbent upon those who brought the new idea to life to not get affected by the noise around them. Every idea deserves a fair run before being discarded. The Bazball has so far worked brilliantly for England. A team that won just one out of 17 Tests before the arrival of McCullum has now won 11 of the last 14. They have dominated every opposition with the bat, scoring at a Run Rate of 4.83; Australia, with 3.52, are second.
Despite the loss and the backlash that followed, all the voices in the England dressing room have spoken in the same tone. They are looking to continue with the same approach and stick to what they believe in. That is what you call a complete “buy-in”.
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