<\/p>\n
B<\/span>y the very end, Trent Bridge was practically empty. This felt bleakly appropriate. If the age of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum lived by re-engaging a sceptical public, winning big series, doing the unprecedented<\/a> and elevating Test cricket above its three-an-over purgatory, then this was exactly how it had to die: the first England team in history to lose a home three-match series<\/a> after being 1-0 up. The run rate on that final day? Exactly three runs an over.<\/p>\n But then if we have learned anything from Stokes and McCullum over the last few years, it is that details \u2013 like preparing for an Ashes tour<\/a> \u2013 are for losers and weak men. Is demoting Emilio Gay to No 6 in his third game really the best way of saving a Test? Was there a way for Harry Brook to face more than nine balls in England\u2019s second innings? Can we really expect a Brook side \u2013 Hazball \u2013 to behave any differently? But these questions do not concern the England management, and so by extension they should not concern you either.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are they doing?\u201d the New Zealand players chuckled on the fourth evening as yet another England batter lobbed a catch into the leg side. The answer, as ever, is that they were creating content: influencer cricket, viral cricket, cricket perfectly calibrated to game the algorithm.<\/p>\n And who cares if you toss away a home series, seven out of nine Tests and a captain<\/a> in the process? Perhaps, on reflection, the real Bazball was the likes we harvested along the way.<\/p>\n If this sounds glib, then we are simply engaging with Bazball on its own terms: a nihilistic cult that for all its spectacular successes meant nothing and stood for nothing. And was thus a perfect fit for a sport in chaos<\/a>, an English cricketing establishment desperate for eyeballs, an England and Wales Cricket Board with precious little cricketing experience and thus more inclined to burn things down than nurture them.<\/p>\n In this country we often sneer at Australia\u2019s teary-eyed mythology<\/a> of the Baggy Green or India\u2019s militarised hyper-nationalism<\/a>. But this is at least an attempt to define the why<\/em>, a locus of devotion, a lineage, a story to tell. English men\u2019s cricket (in contrast to women\u2019s cricket, a genuine tale of resistance and triumph over indignity) has no such story. It exists purely to flog the next tranche of Test match tickets and pack the Sky schedules in the long weeks when there is no Premier League football. It exists for no other reason than to monetise the future version of itself.<\/p>\n Stokes was the perfect cricketer for this age of feverish salesmanship: a great player, albeit a creator of great moments<\/a> rather than lasting monuments, with just enough of a rebellious streak<\/a> to court danger without forgetting who ultimately paid his cheques. In a way, Stokes was a quintessentially English misconception of what a man of the people should look like, a Diego Maradona for the Steven Bartlett era. Of course his talent, endurance, ambition and competitiveness were legendary, and could have inspired England to big series wins had they been intelligently harnessed.<\/p>\n