From Bazball to Blockball

After four seasons, England are still not making any runs, dropping loads of catches and aren’t striking with the ball on Australian soil.

Buy The Art of Batting here:

Bazball died blocking.

Australia out-Bazballed England, and then forced England to bat anti-Bazball. Bazception.

It is still mathematically possible for England to win this series, but spiritually and factually, it feels over. Especially morally.

England didn’t just lose to Australia in back-to-back matches; they did it with Australia’s big four cut in half, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood haven’t bowled a ball yet. And Australia even dropped Nathan Lyon. Losing to one of the best bowling lineups ever assembled on their home turf is acceptable; losing like this, to a makeshift attack stings.

England’s problems in 2022 were an inability to make any runs, dropping loads of catches and not striking enough with the ball when they travelled.

We’ve lived a lifetime of Kool-Aid drinking and amateur pyrotechnics since. Bazball has changed the game, all of us think differently about Tests now than before. Australia, Zimbabwe, India, South Africa and Pakistan have used some of these ideas- often better than England. The pattern and rhythms of the game have been altered. Bazball, as a concept, has been incredible.

But England, the actual Bazball team, four seasons later in Australia are still not making any runs, dropping loads of catches and aren’t striking with the ball. We are back to where we began.

Today, they tried to block again, which is what everyone has been asking for. And while it stopped the drama, the result was the same. Australia scored quicker than England in this match; maybe that is the way this had to end.

Blockball failed, Bazball failed, England failed.

Old heads will remember the Dentury. A phrase given to when English number three (and occasional opener) Joe Denly faced 100 balls. That was the aim late last decade - not to make runs, but just for the top three to stay in. They really struggled with both. England tried Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Haseeb Hameed, Keaton Jennings, James Vince, Alex Hales, Mark Stoneman, Dan Lawrence, Dawid Malan, Tom Westley and Alex Lees.

Some of these names are not even on this graph, because we capped it at 500 runs, and they never got there.

This was England’s revolving door of sadness.

They had two batters with an average over 40 from the start of 2016 till the middle of 2022, and one of those was Alastair Cook, who retired early in this period. Stokes had the next best average of 39, so their fourth-best mark of a current player was Jos Buttler, with 32.15, some of which was him batting as a specialist number seven bat.

In terms of this team, Denly had a successful run, averaging just under 30, good enough for seventh best.

As a complete batting line up, it is just as grim. England made runs in 2020, but they made none in the two years prior, or the 18 months after. Many of the scores they made were against struggling West Indies and Pakistan teams. But that was it - one moment of runs in a drought, and it was seemingly getting worse.

By the time Scott Boland built himself a statue, it really looked like England might never make runs again.

Their final pre-Bazball match was in the West Indies, where they added 324 runs in the entire game while the hosts beat them by ten wickets to win the series.

It wasn’t just that they were losing all the time; they were barely in matches. From 2016-2018 they struggled, but they were winning around 50% of their games. From 2019 onwards, they won 14 and lost 18, and six of those wins were in their one good year.

Around the start of 2021, they won three straight matches in Asia (two in Sri Lanka and one in Chennai). From their following 17 Tests, they didn’t win 16 of them. They played Australia and India away, tough crowd. But they also played India and New Zealand at home, and the West Indies away.

Unless you are playing 1980s West Indies and 2000s Australia on a loop, surely there is no reason to ever win one from 17 matches.

That is a death spiral. Something had to change.