The secrets of ‘Bazball’ – what it really means in Tests
How England have been transformed by Mccullum’s aggression and willingness to embrace white-ball tactics
Jonny Bairstow was asked about his remarkable turnaround in form at the end of the third Test against New Zealand at Headingley this week. There were, he said, many reasons: the end of biosecure bubbles, clarity about his role and the work he had done on his Test technique. But another was the pitches.
“You’ve got to look at the pitches we’ve played on in the last 3½ years in England,” he added. “Playing with the Dukes ball and things that are swinging, and everything like that. It’s like lemons and oranges, they don’t taste the same.”
This summer, both the pitches and the balls – which have gone notably soft – have encouraged batsmen to play in a limited-overs style. In each of the previous 17 years in Test cricket in England, the ball moved more – in the air and off the seam – for quick bowlers. If England are playing a different game, it is partly because the pitches are encouraging them to do so.
Embracing short-format skills
For the first time, batting averages in one-day internationals have surpassed those in Test cricket. The statistic speaks to how the formats have diverged – and also, perhaps, the merits of a more buccaneering approach in Test matches.
Test defences have simply become less durable, especially in England. From 2009-13, in the Andy Flower years, batsmen in Tests in England got out every 70 balls defending. From 2014 until the end of last summer, they were dismissed every 49 balls defending; the decline was similar both for England and the tourists. Yet England’s attacking shots have not become more hazardous in the same way, perhaps because of many players’ short-format prowess.
Batting with the audacity that England showed in the series against New Zealand, scoring at 4.54 an over, would not be the optimal method if a side had the luxury of a well-balanced batting talent pool. But England’s current talent
pool comprises a mixture of defensively-minded batsmen who have underwhelmed in their previous stints in Test cricket, and players with wonderful pedigree in the white-ball game.
The element of surprise
A simple rule holds across most sport: teams tend to play more defensively than the data suggests is optimal. In football, the data indicates teams who are behind should make attacking substitutes earlier; in basketball, it shows teams should take riskier shots from further away from the rim. And in limited-overs cricket it suggests that teams be more aggressive, even at the risk of being bowled out, which has informed England’s white-ball transformation since 2015.
“Test teams spend most of their time in quite a small range of scenarios,” one analyst with an international side observes. “Move outside of those and they don’t really know how to respond. When tailenders tee off, fielding captains don’t know whether to stick or twist.”
More aggression in the field
Since the arrival of Brendon Mccullum as head coach, most of the focus on tactics, rightly, has centred on the batting. From the outside, the bowling attack appeared archetypally English: when everyone was fit, their preferred balance comprised four right-arm pace bowlers operating just above 80mph and a left-arm finger spinner.
Yet, while this was a conventionally English attack, they were not deployed in conventional ways. Ben Stokes’s captaincy prioritised taking wickets over protecting runs, a shift most visible with Jack Leach. In the second innings at Headingley, midon and off were brought up to Michael Bracewell, who then launched a six over long on. Leach asked Stokes if he should bring midon up, but the captain retained the same field. Denied an easy single, Bracewell was caught at the squareleg boundary two balls later.
Embracing chasing
“Let’s get them tonight,” Stokes told his team on the fourth afternoon at Headingley. England had been set 296 to win with 39 overs of the day remaining; that could plausibly be extended to 47 overs if the umpires judged them to be on the verge of victory and gave them another half an hour.
In the event, England needed 54.2, racing to their target after just over an hour’s play on the final day. No side in Test history have chased scores of 250 or more in three consecutive Tests. Three of England’s 12 highest run chases have come this month with Mccullum’s “Bazball” ethos. Chasing has become more advantageous this summer, for two reasons. On flatter wickets, indeed, the most assistance in a Test can often come on the first morning. By playing on fast-forward, England did not give the pitches time to deteriorate, nullifying the traditional handicap of batting last.