After four years and 49 Tests, red-ball cricket\u2019s favourite (or least-favourite) rock and roll act has parted ways. First to go was captain Ben Stokes, who announced his international retirement in the middle of his final Test against New Zealand, followed two weeks later by coach Brendon McCullum, officially marking the end of the \u2018Bazball\u2019 phase of England\u2019s Test history.<\/p>\n
The cold, hard results card reads 27 wins, 20 defeats, and two draws. But a results summary is ultimately an unsatisfying way to judge a tenure filled with dizzying highs and historic lows, one that feels only fitting for a team encouraged from the outset to believe it was \u201cin the entertainment business\u201d.<\/p>\n
After all, rock and roll is a feeling.<\/p>\n
Rockstars are real?<\/b><\/p>\n
It is difficult to overstate just how low an ebb England\u2019s Test team had reached when Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over in June 2022. Joe Root had stepped down after a series defeat in the West Indies left England with just one win from its previous 17 Tests. Confidence was at an all-time low and, barring Root and Stokes, no-one\u2019s place seemed assured.<\/p>\n
In his first press conference, Stokes spoke about wanting a \u201cblank canvas\u201d for his side and his desire for his players to \u201cfeel ten feet tall\u201d. The effect was instantaneous. England chased down 279 in his first match as captain against New Zealand, and the wins kept coming.<\/p>\n
New Zealand was blown away in a whirlwind, followed by India (in a one-off Test) and South Africa. When the bandwagon moved abroad, it began with an impressive whitewash of Pakistan on desperately flat wickets, followed by a series win in New Zealand. Suddenly, the team that could not buy a win had won 11 of its first 13 Tests under the new regime.<\/p>\n
But the real impact extended beyond the results. The previous summer, England had succumbed to a home series defeat against New Zealand after retreating into its shell and dead-batting for a draw when faced with a chase of 273. Those inhibitions were shed. All of a sudden, a team that had cowered behind the question of \u2018what if?\u2019 was bold enough to ask \u2018why not?\u2019<\/p>\n
Chases in excess of 250 were reeled off with jaw-dropping regularity, batting records were broken, and England regularly pushed the boundaries of what was considered normal. At the heart of it was an acknowledgement that the side possessed plenty of experienced, skilled players who had been unable to consistently produce their best.<\/p>\n
Those players were encouraged to believe they could reach their highest level, that playing Test cricket could be freeing and, most importantly, fun. They were made to feel they could do anything, to believe any game could be won, and that tapping into their natural game mattered more than following conventional cricketing wisdom.<\/p>\n
Remember, rock and roll is a feeling.<\/p>\n
That feeling manifested itself in a number of remarkable moments. Jonny Bairstow peeled off centuries for fun by peppering the boundaries, Root found a new level of consistency, even bringing the reverse-ramp into his game, while Stuart Broad and James Anderson found new leases of life with the ball as England flourished playing this new brand of ultra-positive, front-foot cricket by teeing off, though never recklessly.<\/p>\n
Behind the rapid run rates and exorbitant chases that seemed like madness to the viewer, there was plenty of method. The experienced batters always had the situational awareness to pick their moments to take risks, targeting the right bowlers and boundaries when required, while the bowling attack always had the requisite skill and plans to take wickets. Perhaps the team\u2019s defining trait was its ability to seize momentum at crucial phases of a match.<\/p>\n
Stokes himself showed considerable acumen as captain, devising inventive plans to take 20 wickets on the flat surfaces that also allowed England\u2019s batting to flourish, epitomised by the side\u2019s haul of 60 wickets on incredibly flat pitches in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
During this period, however, the self-perpetuating mythology of \u2018 Bazball\u2019 <\/i>(ironically a term McCullum claimed to dislike) also grew. Talk of \u201csaving Test cricket\u201d, claims that opponents who scored quickly had learned from England, and the team\u2019s constant disregard for the World Test Championship were just some of the reasons Bazball became, at times, as much a matter of culture and ideology as a style of cricket.<\/p>\n \n All-rounder Ben Stokes, one of the finest cricketers to ever play for England, was in the middle of a bowling spell at Trent Bridge when a statement was released confirming his intention to end a 15-year international career. Are rock stars real?<\/b><\/p>\n But with time, that experienced group began to move on. Bairstow and Ben Foakes were discarded, Broad and Anderson retired, and the likes of Chris Woakes and Mark Wood found themselves in and out of the side through injury. The newer crop, while talented, seemed to lack the awareness that comes with experience.<\/p>\n The opposition and conditions also became tougher, and England was found wanting. Australia became the first team to inflict back-to-back defeats when it toured for the 2023 Ashes, while chastening trips to India and Pakistan exposed England\u2019s weaknesses against the turning ball. The defeats also grew heavier, with New Zealand and India both handing out losses by margins in excess of 400 runs.<\/p>\n Most damningly, in four series, home and away, against Australia and India, England failed to register a single series victory.<\/p>\n The planning also seemed to disappear. In foreign conditions, England appeared to pick squads based on an assumed nature of conditions rather than the reality. A raft of spinners, including Shoaib Bashir, Rehan Ahmed, and Tom Hartley, were taken to India only to find tracks flat enough for the Indian batters to fill their boots. Then, in Australia, it assembled a cabal of 140kmph-plus fast bowlers only to be outbowled by the likes of Michael Neser and Scott Boland on pitches more akin to typical County green seamers.<\/p>\n When challenged to articulate its philosophy, the team management leaned heavily on the need to be aggressive, particularly with the bat, rather than on empowering players to find their best level. McCullum described his side as \u201ctimid\u201d after the series defeat in India, and the messaging from the camp regularly focused on the need to commit to attacking cricket, with defeat attributed to a failure to do so. It seemed England was trying to recreate its greatest moments rather than the method that had produced them.<\/p>\n When the cracks started appearing, they were both cricketing and cultural. On the field, days increasingly ended with the sense that England had batted itself out of matches by charging down the wicket to the turning ball or hooking short deliveries to the long boundary. Off it, incidents such as Ben Duckett\u2019s Noosa saga and the Rex Rooms episode, which seemed to push Stokes towards retirement, were emblematic of a team that perhaps spent a little too much time enjoying itself and not enough focusing on Test cricket.<\/p>\n Towards the end, the team\u2019s success also leaned more heavily on individuals. Where its early triumphs had been built on Stokes\u2019 call for \u201cselfless cricketers who make decisions based on what they can do to win a game in that given time,\u201d England increasingly relied on Root, Harry Brook, Jofra Archer, or Stokes himself producing a match-defining performance.<\/p>\n The nature of the ending was emblematic. Stokes set his final Test alight by announcing his retirement midway through the third day, immediately claiming a wicket before promoting himself to open the batting, while McCullum\u2019s departure was announced midway through a historic Test for England\u2019s women\u2019s team. What had once been greater than the individuals had, by the end, been reduced to them.<\/p>\n After all, rock and roll is just a feeling.<\/p>\n Who comes after Mick Jagger?<\/b><\/p>\n In the film Almost Famous, a veteran tour manager encourages a young band to cash in on its nascent success. \u201cAs much as you may believe that this is going to last forever, it does not. You\u2019ve got to take what you can, when you can, while you can, and you\u2019ve got to do it now,\u201d he tells them. \u201cIf you think Mick Jagger is going to be out there trying to be a rockstar at age 50, you are sadly, sadly mistaken.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"All-rounder](\"https:\/\/ss-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/ax88r7\/article71219790.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/1170131638.jpg\" "\\"All-rounder")
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![\"Harry](\"https:\/\/ss-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/x8kzy9\/article71219792.ece\/alternates\/FREE_1200\/AFP_B8L748H.jpg\" "\\"Harry")
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