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'Bazball' uncovered - the secrets behind England's daring new philosophy

'Bazball' uncovered - the secrets behind England's daring new philosophy
'Bazball' uncovered - the secrets behind England's daring new philosophy

“Tradition can be a wonderful friend but a dangerous enemy,” Joe Mercer, the former England football manager once observed. So has been England’s mantra throughout their Test series against New Zealand.

It is too early to say that England are changing Test cricket – but not too soon to say that they are at least trying to do so.

Better pitches

At Headingley, Jonny Bairstow was asked about his remarkable turnaround in form. There are many reasons: the end of biosecure bubbles, clarity over his role and the work he has done on his Test technique. But another, as Bairstow noted, is the pitches.

“You’ve got to look at the pitches we’ve played on in the last three-and-a-half years in England,” he said. “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.”

Even amid their struggles away from home, England were undefeated in home Test series from 2015-20. In this period, the ball both swung and seamed more in England than any other nation. No wonder that batting averages plummeted – or, when one-day openers like Alex Hales and Jason Roy opened in Tests, they floundered. “With the red ball in England there’s no hiding place – it swings, it seams, it’s really difficult, so I found it’s a completely different game,” Hales reflected.

But so far this summer both the pitches and the ball – which has gone notably soft – have encouraged batsmen to play with similar adventure to in limited-overs cricket. In the last 18 years in Test cricket in England, in no summer has the ball moved less – in the air and then off the seam – for quick bowlers than in 2022. 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 in cricket history, 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 Test approach. 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 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 against the white-ball.

The element of surprise – and taking down match-ups

A simple rule holds across most sport: teams tend to play more defensively than the data suggests is optimal. In football, the data suggests teams who are behind should make attacking substitutes earlier; in basketball, it suggests teams should take more 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.

In Test cricket, risk aversion has often been most obvious when lesser bowlers are bowling. Paralysed by fear of getting out, batsmen have traditionally milked weaker bowlers for about three runs an over – minimising their chances of being dismissed but also allowing the opposition captain to give his main bowlers a break. A hallmark of England’s batting all series was their ruthlessness in targeting weak links, with no fear about getting out. Michael Bracewell conceded 285 runs from his 47.4 overs – virtually six runs an over. By attacking with such abandon, England occasionally gave up infuriating wickets. But, deprived of the control that spinners traditionally give, New Zealand were forced to return to their main quick bowlers, again and again: their effectiveness, in turn, was diluted by being overexerted. Indeed, the need to summon Kyle Jamieson back into the attack in the second Test, as Bracewell was being smashed, was a factor in his injury.

The tennis player Michael Chang once explained to me why his famous underarm serve, which helped defeat Ivan Lendl en route to winning the 1989 French Open, was so effective. “Ivan is the consummate professional. He prepares for just about every circumstance. But you would never train to play against someone who was cramping, you would never train to play against someone who was hitting an underarm serve. So he was taken by surprise.”

Perhaps this also helps to explain England’s success against New Zealand. “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 normal situations and they don't really know how to respond. It has happened for years when tailenders tee off and fielding captains don't know whether to stick or twist.”

More aggression in the field

Most of the focus upon England’s tactics, rightly, has focused on the batting. From the outside, the bowling attack appeared archetypally English: when everyone was fit, England’s 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. Stokes’s captaincy prioritised taking wickets over protecting runs, a shift most visible with Jack Leach. In the second innings at Headingley, mid on and off were brought up to Bracewell, who then launched a six over long on. Leach asked Stokes if he should send mid on back, but the skipper retained the same field; denied an easy single, Bracewell perished caught at the square leg boundary two balls later. “In teams I’ve played in, the way I’ve thought – a lot of the decisions are made around negativity,” Leach said. “Stokes is going out the opposite way.”

After bowling notably fuller on the first morning of the series, the overall lengths of England’s seamers have actually changed little this series. But, with Stokes’s field placings notably more aggressive, England have cast off Chris Silverwood’s old mantra of bowling dry. This has the handy effect of speeding Tests up, helping the last notable shift in England’s approach: their newfound penchant for chasing.

Embracing chasing

“Let’s get them tonight,” Ben Stokes told England’s teammates on the fourth afternoon at Lord’s. England had been set 296 to win with 39 overs of the day remaining; that could plausibly be extended to 47 overs if England took the extra half-hour if the umpires judged them on the verge of victory.

In the event, England needed 54.2 overs, racing to their target after just over an hour’s play on the final day. No side in Test history has ever chased scores of 250 or more in three consecutive Tests. Three of England’s 12 highest run chases have come this month.

In the first and third Tests, New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat. But in the second Test, on a flat wicket that did not deteriorate appreciably, England chose to bowl first. It was a decision out of kilter with modern trends in Test cricket: as the book Hitting Against The Spin shows, teams batting first won almost twice as many Tests as they lost from 2014-2020.

Choosing to chase goes against the orthodoxy in Test cricket. But it is in keeping with the orthodoxy in limited-overs cricket: in ODIs, chasing teams have won 51 per cent of matches in history, rising to 52 per cent since 2010.

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. And, by playing matches on fast-forward, England aren’t giving the pitches time to deteriorate, nullifying the traditional handicap of batting last in Test cricket.

The future

Test cricket is very mature; only a select few sides – think of Clive Lloyd’s West Indies, with their emphasis on pace, or Steve Waugh’s Australia, with their rapid scoring – genuinely change the game. England are attempting to do so after a sequence of one win in 17 Tests.

Given their array of middle-order stroke-makers, attacking against the old ball on good batting wickets – even if not quite at this rate – might just be sustainable. But England are likely to need a little more restraint facing the new ball in most conditions: against New Zealand, they suffered a collapse of 7-41 on the opening day at Lord’s, and 55-6 at the start of their first innings at Headingley.

How transferable England’s approach is, against different opponents, in different conditions and when they need to bat first, remains unknowable. But so far England aren’t merely winning Test matches again; they are also doing so in an extraordinary way.