Before proceeding to read this blog, please read part one of the England series against India. In this blog, I will dissect the opinion of England’s former cricketers, some of whom were really savage on their team. It was an incredible performance on the part of the Indians who missed several key personnel in the lead upto the series and also during the series. England’s were thoroughly walloped in the series. A couple of those defeats were quite heavy. There is no escaping that fact. The former England players laid the blame squarely upon Bazball. I definitely feel that this is unfair. Bazball is just a methodology that needs to be properly executed. The England batsmen executed rather poorly. That is a fact.
Needless chatter
The claims from Anderson, Duckett and a few others were grand. Those were needless and immature. Ben Duckett said the more, the better at Rajkot when England were facing a chase of over 550 runs and were bundled for 122. Duckett could be excused for being immature but what about Anderson? The senior pro? He said that even if India were to post a target of 600 runs, England would chase them in 60-70 overs. This was arrogance. He could have said that whatever the score is, we will chase and win. That would have been a normal statement. Perhaps, the win at Hyderabad made the entire team cocky.
It is one thing to believe within themselves that they can win from any position but it is completely different to utter such nonsense statement to the press when playing away from the home. It certainly got the Indians riled up. Ashwin felt that England had gone too far. It must be noted that the effect of Bazball made Rohit and Dravid cautious. They needed that cushion of 100 runs when usually, teams will declare with a lead of about 450.
Comments made by former players
Alastair Cook wrote, “[Bazball] is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The recent results speak for themselves: it is not a winning formula. It seems there is a lack of responsibility and a lack of accountability … winning does matter, winning is paramount. Losing is not just a shrug of the shoulders.”
Jonathan Agnew lamented,
“It is frustrating, but that’s where you have to be accountable. If not, the fans will start to see through that.”
Adam Gilchrist mocked,“They’re not going to lose this Test now that the captain Ben Stokes has come out and said ‘we want to win this week. Which is a real change in philosophy from say the start of the Ashes where winning was not on the agenda, it was not even on the radar. It was all about entertainment.”
Michael Vaughan ridiculed, “England losing by 434 clearly in this series is not a hammering, it’s just quite a close game that was taking place. What I like about Stokesy, at least this week he was telling the world he was going to win. He decided this was the week, the last few Test matches was just to give India some confidence. You have to remember that Bazball is all about saving Test cricket and giving the public what they want and that’s exactly what Ben and his team have done over the past few weeks.”
My take
Some of these were quite savage. All of them have been blamed directly or indirectly, Bazball though Vaughan points out the penchant of Stokes to entertain. Stokes when he took over the captaincy, famously said that England are here to entertain the public. It certainly sounded like they cared about entertainment rather than winning. This was in evidence because of 2 nonsensical decisions, one against Australia and the other against New Zealand. Ben Stokes declared the innings in the first Test when England were not in that comfortable position. They went onto lose that Test.
The bottomline is, Stokes, McCullum and the England players must understand that winning a Test is tough, extremely tough. They are not playing the game to entertain but to win. Entertainment is not the job of any sports personality. It is the profile of theatre artists. Sports is to win.
Wrapping up England’s series against India
Blaming Bazball I do not think is the solution. England has been doing well under this new method. Winning in India is tough but England could have done better with India missing out on experienced players.