Australia has proved again this Bazball is nothing but a stunt!

By Rahul Das ( Guest Writer)

It really was fun while it lasted.It provided some of the most thrilling Test cricket served up by any side for a long time. And, for an intoxicating couple of years, it really did look as though it might re-define the way the longest and ultimate form of the game is played.But ‘Bazball’, that label for their brand of cricket that its architects have always so disliked, fizzled out in Adelaide and has been consigned to history on Sunday when England conceded the Ashes to Australia yet again after less than 11 days of one-sided cricket.

It could be argued Bazball died when Ben Stokes spent more than four hours defying Australia in the first innings of the third Test in reaching the slowest 50, off 159 balls, of the 155 half-centuries made by England batters since Brendon McCullum became coach.Or that it expired on this fourth day when England ignored any fanciful notion of trying to blast their way to a record-breaking target of 435 and, instead, produced the most sensible and orthodox Test batting of the Stokes-McCullum tenure.

After all, the sight of Zak Crawley, the opener who smashed the first ball of the last Ashes off Pat Cummins for four, calmly defending Mitchell Starc’s first over and taking just one run from his first 29 balls was the antithesis of what has become his norm. But, in truth, Bazball had been dying for some time.It has now been finished by a ruthless and relentless Australia who has taken particular pleasure in proving there is no substitute for the good old-fashioned virtues of conventional, yet still positive, Test cricket.Perhaps there was no coming back when Stokes declared after defeat in the second Test in Brisbane: “Australia isn’t a place for weak men. Well, any dressing room I’m captain of isn’t a place for weak men either.”What happened to taking the pressure off his players, encouraging them to play with no fear and with no repercussions for failing? To ensure they went out with all guns blazing?

Nasser Hussain: ‘England’s players will not like what they hear, but Ben Stokes must deliver harsh truths’. The England captain needs to ascertain whether his players have the strength of character and adaptability to turn the Ashes series aroundGo back further and the writing was on the wall when Stokes and McCullum pressed the reset button after England had been thrashed 4-1 in India at the start of 2024.Doubts had started to creep in. England was no longer running towards the danger. They had gone back on their original intentions of being great entertainers and had accepted the bottom line will always be winning, whichever route they took to achieve it.

Yet Bazball 2.0, the revised version complete with tweaks and distinctly less bravado, was not good or robust enough to earn victory against India last summer. Likewise, it has not been nearly good enough for its ultimate ambition: to win the Ashes in Australia.And what will hurt Stokes and McCullum most is that the mixed messages and rejection of their natural instincts has contributed to them failing in Australia just as timidly and emphatically as the last three England sides to tour Down Under.

There is no doubt many will take great delight in the ultimate failure of Stokes, McCullum’s and England managing director Rob Key’s exciting but flawed and un-English experiment, particularly in Australia where anti-Bazball feelings in this series have at times bordered on the febrile.But yours truly will not be among them.This England regime have provided some of the best moments in a lifetime of watching Test cricket, professionally and as a supporter, and I for one would dearly have loved Bazball to climax with an Ashes triumph.

Let’s not forget how bad and turgid England had become in their run of one win in the last 17 Tests under the captaincy of Joe Root and the coaching of Chris Silverwood. They are good men, but they had run out of ideas and were devoid of all inspiration.That all changed when Key took the bold step of giving up a burgeoning career as a pundit to succeed Ashley Giles as England managing director, brought together Stokes and McCullum and advised the world to “strap yourself in and enjoy the ride”.

That ride started in swashbuckling style in 2022 when Jonny Bairstow, the first poster boy of Bazball, smashed a century off 77 balls and England not only chased down a target of 299 in 72 overs against New Zealand at Trent Bridge but vaporised it.It carried on spectacularly when Stokes re-wrote cricketing logic by saying “we’ll have a chase” on winning the toss in the delayed final Test against India at Edgbaston, and then saw his side cruise to a record 378 to win with seven wickets in hand.“There was something inside me that wished they’d set us 450 just so I could see whether we could chase it,” said Stokes in those heady moments afterwards and, for a while, it did appear as if England could chase anything or routinely smash 500 runs in a day.

Perhaps cracks started to appear in the last Ashes when Stokes’ funky first-day declaration at Edgbaston and England’s suicidal devotion to attack and the pull shot after Nathan Lyon limped off at Lord’s contributed to a 2-0 deficit they could not quite overturn.And even those of us who had been intoxicated by the ride began to turn when Root gave his wicket away to a ramp shot in Rajkot against India at the worst possible time. That contributed to England wasting their fantastic come-from-behind first Test victory in Hyderabad.Another huge opportunity was passed up when England threw away their big chance to win the first Test of this Ashes in Perth in two spectacularly bad sessions. By the time of this third match in Adelaide, most England fans just wanted their team to play ‘properly’.

The England fans who made an 18,000-mile round trip for 12 hours of Ashes cricket: ‘Everyone’s so deflated’ .The shortest Ashes Test in 104 years left travelling England fans anguished at their team’s attitude and had implications, too, for Perth.They did that on the fourth day — not least Crawley, who has been backed so stubbornly by England during the Bazball years despite all evidence to the contrary in the belief that his game was made for the extra pace of Australian bowlers and their pitches.It looked it here as Crawley almost seemed to be auditioning for the next England regime and a Bazball-less future by making 85 sensible runs before becoming the last of three late wickets for Lyon that saw them crash from 177-3 to 194-6.It was the second of those wickets, a beauty that pitched on middle and took the top of off-stump that did for Stokes and any hopes of the best of all those run chases and another Ashes miracle the likes of which the England captain inspired at Headingley in 2019.Stokes stood and nodded at Lyon as if in recognition that Australia are just too good for England, whichever way they try to play, and that his dream of becoming one of the few England captains to win the Ashes in Australia is over

The next two Tests will decide the futures of Stokes, McCullum and Key but it is hard to envisage the coach and managing director surviving another 5-0 thrashing.Stokes will probably be given the chance to carry on, if his body allows him to. And so he should because he remains one of England’s best captains despite being out-thought as well as out-played by Cummins and Australia.Bazball might be over but there remains rich talent in this England side. Stokes is the best man to take them forward, at least until the next Ashes in England in 2027 when he will have one last chance to defeat the old enemy.Probably with more orthodox methods — but not necessarily with so much fun.