Tag: central figures

Where does the Bazball phenomenon go now?

Was Ben Stokes’ decision to declare on day one a mistake?

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The Bazball weakness that could cost England the Ashes

– Robert Craddock

A majestic first Test has proved that Bazball is a peerless way to entertain fans but, in its ever so subtle way, Uzzball is the best route to the Ashes.

Hats off to England for the life they have breathed in the game, but the loss of this Test will rock them to the core.

English headlines like “A real kick in the Bazzballs’’ may be raising grins this morning but there is also an underlying truth that England has been kicked where it hurts most.

If England keep losing this summer the joy of this side’s fabulous freedom of expression will be replaced by a more intense scrutiny of their cavalier methods. There’s only one thing English fans love more than entertainment – winning.

Make no mistake, Australia will be a better side for this win.

As you read this story somewhere in Birmingham Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith will surely be playing mini-practice shots in their hotel rooms, craving to make an imprint next Test after failing in the opener.

England, however, limp away with limited options and major selection issues everywhere, from injured spinner Moeen Ali to error-prone keeper Jonny Bairstow and whether veteran swing maestro Jimmy Anderson has reached the end of the line sooner than expected.

Bazzball has been wonderful for the game but for all the razzle and dazzle on display in England’s second innings, no batsman made 50 on a flat deck. They are not unlucky losers.

In a near anonymous hour before Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon magnificently stole the show, Usman Khawaja spotlighted the fact that his flexible batting mantra – let’s call it Uzzball – has the one precious gear Bazball is missing.

Not fourth or fifth gear where wheels screech, crowds roar and commentators gasp, but the gear which decides the fate of so many Test matches … first.

Khawaja’s recent form surge, including his two epic Edgbaston innings, has him on the verge of becoming a great of the Australian game – an astonishing achievement given he has been dropped from the team seven times.

The veteran was under fire in the fire hour of the last day when he scored five runs off 41 balls and Australia looked to be going nowhere.

Bazball would never have allowed such a dawdle, but Khawaja’s strength of mind and soundness of defensive technique won Australia a Test, and quite possibly the Ashes.

For all that Khawaja has achieved in his stunning comeback to the five-day game, this was one of his finest hours as a Test batsman where he shut out all the temptations to snatch at the match or challenge England at their own cavalier game.

Amazingly, the only time Australia seemed genuinely in front in the game was the last ball of the match.

Australia will be better for this win because there were times when they seemed a bit disorientated by what was happening around them.

Statistician Ric Finlay spotted the difference between the two teams, who both lost 18 wickets for the Test.

Australia scored 668 runs to England’s 666 but Australia faced a staggering 384 more balls for roughly the same amount of runs.

Remarkably, Australia hit one more four (68 to 67) and four more sixes (11 to 7), which means that for all the huffing and puffing associated with Bazball, one of its underrated features is batsmen rotating the strike.

The only predictable thing about this series is its unpredictability. A great English summer awaits us.

Stokes defends costly gamble

– Daniel Cherny

Ben Stokes has defended his decision to declare before stumps on day one after England let the first Test slip from an impregnable position.

Australia’s two-wicket win came on the back of heroics from Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon, who put on an unbeaten 55 for the ninth wicket, but the Aussies may have run out of time had Stokes not ended England’s innings at 8-393 late on the opening day in a bid to make early inroads into Australia’s top order.

Joe Root was 118 not out and smoking them when Stokes called time on the innings, following a pattern under England’s Bazball approach.

Aussie openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja survived those early salvos and while their side slumped to 3-67 the following day, Australia recovered to make 386 in its first innings.

As it turned out, the tourists won the match well past 7pm on the final day and inside the last five overs.

Yet Stokes suggested he had no regrets over his decision to call time on the innings.

“I‘m a captain and a person who has seen that as an opportunity to pounce on Australia,” he said.

“You know, no opening batsman likes to go out for 20 minutes before the close of play and the way in which we played and took Australia on actually allowed us to be able to do that.

“And, you know, I could also turn around and say, ‘if we didn‘t declare would we have got that excitement that we did at the end of day five?’

“I‘m not 100 per cent sure. But, you know, I’m not going to be looking back on this game as you know ‘what ifs.’ There’s so many things that happened throughout the five days, which we could look back on and say if that went our way, could this game have been different? But the reality is that, you know, we just didn’t manage to get over the line this week.”

Stokes said that no one factor had cost England the game, but paid credit to Lyon and Cummins.

“You play cricket over five days, there‘s so many things that goes on that you could look back at, you know, sort of 20 individual moments which you could go like ‘if that happened, if that went our way, could this game have been different?’ But I don’t like to look at things like that. At the end of the day, the game went down to the wire and Australia managed to get over the line.”

Cummins gets one back for ‘hurt’ of 2019

Pat Cummins said the memories of Australia’s heartbreaking one-wicket defeat at Headingley four years earlier went through his mind as he and Nathan Lyon brought their side back from the brink at Edgbaston on Tuesday.

The Australian skipper meanwhile spoke of how special it was to be able to share the stirring win with his father and brother after they lost their wife and mother Maria to cancer earlier this year.

Cummins and Lyon combined for a stunning unbeaten 55-run ninth-wicket stand to wrest the first Test from England at 7:21pm on day five.

It was Cummins who had delivered the ball that Ben Stokes hit for four to win the epic third Test in 2019 at Leeds for England by one wicket, and Lyon who had infamously fumbled in the dying stages of that match.

That the pair were in the middle when Australia pulled off a similarly remarkable win was not lost on Cummins.

“Yeah, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t (cross my mind),” Cummins said.

“We’ve been on the other side of it last series, so I think just what a wonderful Test match, really hard fought and it’s one of those ones when you’re on the other side of it, really hurts, feels like one that got away so it’s a pretty happy dressing room in there at the moment to be 1-0 up in this series and a lot of those guys were there at Headingley.

“So to feel like we clinched one, kind of that perhaps was out of our grasp there for a little while is pretty satisfying.”

It has been a trying year personally for Cummins, who flew home midway through the tour of India to be with his mother before she died.

Cummins’ father Peter was in the Australian rooms sharing in the celebrations on Tuesday night at Edgbaston. And as it turns out, that wasn’t the only special experience he had shared with his son during the week, with the pair attending a Bruce Springsteen concert at Birmingham’s Villa Park after play on day one.

“Yeah, just really special. Dad’s been here all week. So I just feel really lucky to have him here. It‘s been a tough few months. My brother’s been here all week as well. Dad was here in 2019 with Mum, so just having him here is just really special. I went with him to Bruce Springsteen on the first night this week as well. So it’s been a good week, he’s pretty happy.”