Is Bazball Inevitable?

The narrative surrounding Ben Stokes and Brendan McCullum’s current England side has leapt between skepticism, awe and mockery in the space of just two years. Whilst recent series against Australia and India have left something to be desire in terms of the results, it’s undeniable that the gung-ho approach has turned one of the most dismally underperforming sides in cricket into a peculiar beast that can take anyone down, on its day.

The aggressive style of batting takes the limelight, as the most obvious change in how to approach test cricket. In the case of this England side, it happened so quickly and dramatically that it caught us all off guard, especially when it worked so well so soon, but is it actually any surprise that the game is moving in that direction? The next, and even current, generation of cricketers have known T20 cricket their whole careers, and Eoin Morgan’s ODI team of 2015 onwards showed that the aggressive, T20-esque approach could still work when presented with 50 overs to play with, so surely the longest format would move in the same direction one way or another.

It’s no surprise that the uptick in scoring rates seen from Australian test team of the 90s/00s coincided with the first generation of Australian players who took ODI cricket seriously. A similar change is now taking place with T20 cricket becoming the sport’s biggest spectacle, whether you like it or not. English domestic players, most notably youngster Will Smeed, but also test-capped veterans Sam Billings and Dawid Malan, are turning away from red-ball cricket as T20 has evolved into perhaps the most reliable career path in cricket, and the influence of T20 is now being felt in the longest format.

We’re beginning to see other test sides, namely Sri Lanka and, to a lesser degree, Pakistan, take a similar approach, whilst not quite to the same extent as Stokes and his merry men. Sri Lanka have scored at more than 4 runs per over in all but 2 innings so far this year, still going at 3.77 in one of those. Although Pakistan have yet to put it into practice to the same degree, there’s been plenty of talk around a new approach under new test skipper Shan Masood, who has been striking at 74.37 so far this year for Yorkshire in the County Championship. He’s also captaining Harry Brook, who boasts a strike rate of 94.86 and an average of 77.60, which will undoubtedly fuel his eagerness to follow that method.

With so few test cricket opportunities being presented to the smaller/newer test nations, and so many of their players appearing in T20 leagues across the world, will we also start seeing Ireland, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and others looking to score at 5+ runs an over? That prospect seems all the more reasonable with the suggestion of 4 day tests becoming a regular feature. The immediate success of Ben and Baz’s England side, after winning just 1 in 17 with a batting order containing just one man who averaged more than 40, seems as good of a sales pitch for that style of cricket as you could hope for, particularly for the sides made up of players who hit more white balls than red - particularly for a country like Ireland who have even done away with their first class competition for the time being.

Australia’s test side have been moving in the opposite direction, making a return to a defensive, grinding style of cricket more synonymous with Strauss’ England side that won the Ashes in 10/11 than any Australian teams of the last two or three decades. Despite this, Travis Head, and Mitch Marsh to an extent, have seen huge success striking at 90+ on a regular basis, and it would be far from surprising to see an Australian test team return to quick run rates once the Khawaja and Smith step aside and a new crop of youngsters, more well acclimatised to T20 cricket, break into the test side.

India, the final of the “big three” cricketing nations, have also stuck to a more traditional approach on the whole, however everything in Indian cricket also seems to be trending towards T20 influence in the red-ball game. The IPL is seemingly treated as more of an audition for a test cap than the Ranji Trophy of late, and with all the finest young talent in India coming through the IPL, it’s surely a matter of time until run-rates start skyrocketing there as well.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, one of the brightest lights in Indian cricket across the formats, is already putting that case forward, exemplified by his staggering 214* from just 236 balls against England at Rajkot. Sarfaraz Khan also hit multiple 50+ scores against England whilst striking at 90+, potential future India captain in Shubman Gill hit 110 from 150 balls, and current test skipper Rohit Sharma is no stranger to aggressive batting. Whilst India’s overall run rates in the series against England only got above 4 in one innings, the culture of Indian cricket seems to be moving in that direction.

So we’ve seen the “Bazball” approach take England from 1 win in 17 attempts to winning 14 of their next 19 tests. Teams like Pakistan and Sri Lanka are already looking to take a similar, if slightly less dramatic, approach, and aggression seems to be the natural evolution for sides like Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, who’s players see so little of a red-ball that traditional, defensive batting seems illogical. India, the mightiest power in world cricket, is already allowing their newest stars to take IPL-inspired batting into the longest format, and Australia, whilst currently the biggest hold-outs (alongside their Oceanic partners in New Zealand) for the traditional style of test cricket, has aggression in their very nature, along with flashes of attacking batting from some. The Bazball approach, whether in it’s most ruthlessly brash form or otherwise, is surely the future.