Will Bazball work in India?
How will England travelling to India to face the world's greatest spinners on spin-friendly wickets play out?
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The last Australian tour to India was a bloodbath; it felt like more wickets than runs. In the last decade, teams have turned up to India just to be dismissed. India has their greatest bowling attack, but the pitches are treacherous.
The last time Australia toured, something a bit weird happened. Travis Head - who Australia were reluctant to use in the first place - ended up with over 200 runs from three Tests and also at a faster rate than anyone.
It wasn't always pretty, he was out of control at times. And that was one of the reasons I thought of him. The other is the name that people now sometimes use around him - Travball. This is ironic because Australians don't like the term Bazball.
To take the piss, Travball started being used as well. And for a while, Head was really smashing it around. He has since slowed down a little. But he still has that gear when needed.
In the last two years, Head has had the third-fastest strike rate. But look at who is around him. He is completely surrounded by English players here. It isn't just a convenient nickname; Head really did play a one-man brand of Bazball. And he did it on Indian pitches.
So if it worked for him, can it work for his brothers in slog? Will England's Bazball work inside India?
This is one of the most interesting experiments in Tests, England travelling to India to face the world's greatest spinners, on wickets set up to be nearly impossible to play on. So how will it play out?
Bazball is so new that we have only seen it in three locations. Outside of at home, where the wickets were changed a little to help this new style, Pakistan and New Zealand are the two places with the highest batting averages. So we know it works on flat pitches.
It's worth looking at just how England's new method might go down on the Indian wickets. We know it worked pretty well inside Asia so far, but that was all on Pakistan wickets.
While technically both are Asian, they're as related as a wolf and a Dachshund. So this will be very different, no matter how you look at it.
So we will learn two things - how Bazball works against great spin, and also on mega bowler-friendly surfaces.
The one thing India has been doing at home is creating low-scoring matches. This is what allowed Australia to snatch a Test on that last tour. They only scored 197 in the first innings, but that was enough to ensure a 76-run chase. The flaw with India's plan to make the wickets so jacked for spin is they can make the results a little more random.
Australia should not have won a Test. The other thing it does is allow for low-scoring matches, where one guy batting for a session can have a huge impact.
With that in mind, I want to point out a match last time England toured where they got slapped around the earholes. India won by ten wickets. But something from that Test has stuck with me for a while: Zak Crawley's innings.
He scored 53 of England's first 80 runs when he was the fourth wicket. His innings lasted 84 balls. If that innings happened today, he would have scored at least run a ball; his slowest 50 in Bazball is a strike rate of 81. But mostly they have been quicker than a run a ball. So if he faced 84 deliveries now - we are going completely into the hypothetical theatre here - he would be around 90 runs. Well, that Test India only made 145 in the first innings.
That was exactly the kind of wicket we expected this time - albeit, the pink ball did weird shit as well on that Ahmededbad surface. But if the old flawed Crawley can make a decent 50 in a low-scoring game, then surely the cigar-chomping Zak can smack around an 80 or 90. And there are a lot of players like him in this England side. Suppose the majority of the matches have small totals. In that case, England players swinging their big dicks around could have a surprisingly large impact, even if they mostly fail.
However, since we are talking about Crawley, so far in Asia - when not in Pakistan - against spin he averages six. It is only from four Tests in India and Sri Lanka before the McCullum revolution. But it's not good.
This entire list is not good, Buttler is retired, Lawrence has the next best of current players, and he has just come in as cover for Harry Brooks. But even so, we're talking a 30 average. Then you have Stokes, who is averaging under 20. Bairstow, who is just above 20, and Pope back under it again. Even Ben Foakes is struggling.
This is from batting normally, so you might ask what they have to lose by just pressing the turbo button.
So let us look at fast scoring inside India. In the middle, we have the average playing aggressive shots in the world over the last five years. Just under 69 runs per wicket. That might seem high, but remember Test players usually only attack when the ball is in their favour. You can also see that against Indian spinners at home are averaging 60 runs per act of aggression. It's still way better than normal, but not so much that it suggests you shouldn't try it.
The most interesting thing is that their pacers are getting scored on a lot at home when the batters are attacking. Injuries have played a small part here, but this is mostly the wickets. So even if India only bowl six overs of pace early on, England can attack this so that perhaps they score 40 or 50 runs.
But eventually, you will have to attack the spinners, what is unknown is how much carnage England can maintain while the spinners are on without all being dismissed. They won't average 60 per aggressive shot, but they don't have to. If they play enough, they can create chaos back on the Indian spinners who are used to bowling confused defensive batters.
The ultra-aggression probably won't work, but defending for many of them won't, either. As we saw last time.
Let us say that against all odds, they get some good regular slightly above-par totals.
The only way all this works is if England also takes wickets. Anderson and Leach are the only two you can rely on in Asia, and even then, Anderson will not play all the matches (including the first). Everyone else is a question mark. Root will take a couple, but being that India doesn't have many lefties, he will struggle to have a regular impact, but is always good for a spell or two.
Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson at least know what it's like to bowl in Asia, but neither would be seen as major players there. Gus Atkinson is in the squad as well.
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