To Bazball or not to Bazball?

Raymond Illingworth – revered Ashes-winning England captain, pugnacious all-rounder, professional Yorkshireman – must be spinning in his grave. Illy, as he was universally known, would have detested Bazball, the current brand of cricket favoured by England, which prioritises attack, prizes fearlessness, abhors negativity, courts danger and willingly accepts defeat as the flipside of a desire to win. “If you fail, you fail,” as current England skipper Ben Stokes said nonchalantly before the start of the series against Australia. “I’m really proud of the way the guys played,” added coach Brendon “Baz” McCullum (after whom “Bazball” is named”) following England’s defeat at Edgbaston last week by the wafer-thin margin of two wickets. And his approach at Lord’s in the second Test, which starts on Wednesday? “We’ll be going a bit harder.”

McCullum is evidently a disciple of French first world war general Ferdinand Foch. “My centre is yielding. My right is retreating. Situation excellent. I am attacking.” Thirty years ago, an England coach and captain who lost the first Ashes Test thanks to a dodgy first-innings declaration and reckless second-innings batting would have been vilified. Now, they are lionised for playing entertaining cricket and possibly saving the long form of the game – Test cricket is under sustained assault from Twenty20. England under Stokes and McCullum have performed brilliantly over the past year, beating New Zealand and South Africa in England and then achieving a historic clean sweep in the Test series in Pakistan. Crowds are flocking to matches, Sky had record viewing figures for the first Test, most pundits are cooing. But after Australia’s victory, the voices of the naysayers did start to get an airing. Geoffrey Boycott – another native of Yorkshire, where cricket has traditionally been seen more as puritanical religion than pastime – worried that England were approaching the games as if they were “exhibition matches”. Jonathan Agnew reckoned there was a risk England would become “entertaining losers”. Barney Ronay, in the Guardian, thought Bazball had elements of a cult. “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre”, as another French general said of The Charge of the Light Brigade, a kind of mid-Victorian military version of Bazball.

At Edgbaston, England’s ultra-aggressive philosophy was exposed by the more pragmatic Australians. Illy, doyen of flinty Yorkshire cricket, would never have given the Aussies a target they could reach. “He only liked to gamble on certainties,” fellow England all-rounder Trevor Bailey once said of him. “This was the outlook of a Roundhead, rather than a Cavalier, but who won the civil war?” It may be too early to take sides in this particular civil war. Bazball may work, or it may go down in flames. But it has certainly reignited interest in Test cricket and prompted a philosophical debate about the nature of sport. Is a dull draw better than a thrilling defeat? Is sport which is designed to entertain authentic? Are we drawn more to heroic losers than efficient winners? Would a modern-day Tennyson memorialise Stokesy or Illy? And the question now at Lord’s: should we eke out the runs or charge for the guns?

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