Bazball comes to town
8‘Bazball’ is an attitude. One which believes in trying to score runs and picking wickets in every situation. After revolutionizing test cricket for the last eight months England have arrived on New Zealand shores. At the helm of this phenomenal change have been two kiwis; Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes. Yes, we will claim Benjamin Andrew Stokes as one of ours. When you are a country of only 5.1 million you have the right to claim everything you can.
When Baz and Stokesy got together England’s red ball team was in disarray. Root had just given up captaincy. M/s Anderson and Broad had been dropped from the test side and England were at the bottom of the 2021-2023 world test championship (WTC) cycle. Credit has to be given to Robert Key (Managing Director of England men’s cricket) who had the vision of making Stokes the captain and McCullum the coach. Two personalities who are very much alike. Positive, aggressive and ready to lose while going for the win which is a very risky approach considering that in cricket everyone fails more often than they succeed.
The duo first decided on the way they wanted to play and then went about recruiting the personnel for the ride. The diktat was simple. This is the way we want to play. Either you are all in or you are out. To win test matches you have to pick up 20 wickets. Stokes, backed by McCullum fought to bring back veterans Anderson and Broad into the England team. Having picked up 1241 test wickets between them, the two definitely knew how to get the job done. The batters were given the freedom to express themselves without the fear of failure. This approach even helped a legend like Joe Root take his game to the next level. Root playing the scoop and reverse scoop in test cricket is prime Bazball territory.
The results were instant. A 3-0 series win over New Zealand at home. A win over India at home in a one off test to square a Covid19 affected series. A 2-1 win over South Africa at home followed by a 3-0 whitewash of Pakistan away. 9 wins and 1 loss in 10 tests in such style that the cricketing world had to take notice. The biggest positive for England has been that white ball specialists like Ben Duckett, Liam Livingstone, Mark Wood and Harry Brook all want to be a part of this test side. The universe is working. Positivity is attracting more positivity.
New Zealand on the other hand are going through change themselves. The defending test champions of the last cycle have struggled in this edition. The world test championship title came of the back of a strong showing at home and being competitive overseas. This time though they have been average at home and poor overseas barring the recent drawn series against Pakistan. Southee took over the test captaincy from Williamson before the Pakistan tour and although the sample size is small early indications are pretty positive as the blackcaps need Williamson the batter more than Williamson the captain. A Ross Taylor sized hole in the batting and a Trent Boult sized hole in the bowling are going to take a long time to fill though. Both were once in a generation kind of players and nobody in first class cricket is breaking the door down with their performances and screaming “pick me”.
The good news though is that in Latham, Conway and Williamson the batting has three world class operators. If Daryl Mitchell scores half the runs he scored when these two sides met in test cricket last time (538 in 6 innings) they will be very welcome. Kyle Jamieson is back from a long injury layoff and says he’s hungry and raring to go. Along with Southee, Wagner and Matt Henry it forms a formidable pace attack especially at home. Ish Sodhi has revived his test career with an impressive showing in Pakistan and Michael Bracewell is slowly making a name for himself in international cricket.
Commercial reasons and a packed international calendar means that the series has only two tests. Also for some bizarre reason they are not part of the WTC. The first one is a pink ball affair at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui whereas the second is a traditional red ball test at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. The pink ball swings and seams a lot more than its red sibling and both sides have excellent medium pacers to extract anything on offer. All eyes will be on what the curator dishes out at the Mount. Last time New Zealand played four fast bowlers on a flat pitch and lost to Bangladesh at lunch time on day 5. The Basin on the other hand for years has been dishing out the standard template of lots of live grass on days 1 and 2, flattening out on days 3 and 4 and breaking up to assist the spinners on day 5.
The visitors had a two-day pink ball game in Hamilton against a NZ XI where they smashed 465 in 70 overs including 5 sixes in a single over. The hosts though were busy playing domestic white ball cricket and will go into the first test pretty cold especially against the pink ball. We know how England will play. Their ultra-positive approach has so far worked in England and Pakistan. Is ‘Bazball’ a globally successful formula or will the blackcaps stop the English juggernaut? Time will tell.
Rahul’s probable English XI – Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook, Stokes, Foakes, Robinson, Broad, Anderson and Leach
Rahul’s probable Blackcaps XI – Latham, Conway, Williamson, Nicholls, Mitchell, Blundell, Bracewell, Jameison, Wagner, Henry, Southee
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great to see your article on sportsfreak..keep writing!
Nicely written
Thanks Kunal. Appreciate it.
Well written article… summarizing all the points before series unfolds.
Keep writing. Article like this make us aware and also create excitement to watch it.
Thanks for the feedback Pritesh. Much appreciated.
Cheers Tom. Appreciate it
Great article, lot of insightful points.
Should be an interesting contest, both teams seem evenly matched and tend to like similar conditions…
Thanks Anurag. Appreciate the feedback