Cheers mate, a good read.Interesting article about the current Australian team:
Treated like adults, Australia’s cricketers now play like them
Since Pat Cummins and Andrew McDonald were placed together as captain and coach last year, they have built an atmosphere of empowerment and adult decisions among their players.www.theage.com.au
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Cricket
- Thread starter mb64
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Wonder what the Headline would have been if we'd lost? 'Aussie Millennial Cricketers dodge training'?Interesting article about the current Australian team:
Treated like adults, Australia’s cricketers now play like them
Since Pat Cummins and Andrew McDonald were placed together as captain and coach last year, they have built an atmosphere of empowerment and adult decisions among their players.
How is it a gimmick when you've just accidentally proven what Bazball is.
You've correctly shown that Australia scored more runs than England - well done, they won, wouldn't that be obvious.
Yes Australia hit more runs and hit more boundaries, but as you say a lot more balls were faced, and isn't that the essence of what they say Bazball is. Its scoring faster right?
England had an average run rate of 4.6 runes per over. Australia was 3.2.
England scored a boundary (4 or 6) every 11.7 balls,Australia every 15.8.
How is it a gimmick in name only? Aren't those stats exactly what "Bazball" is? Aggression and quick scoring?
Again - I have no idea why so many Australians seem to have this focus around why another team can't be aggressive. I didn't realise that aggression was only allowed if you were Australian. As I said in another post, it seems the term "bazball" gets up peoples clackers for some reason, but you need to understand how massive a swing this is in English cricket. England has always played cricket in a defensive manner, so to move to this change is huge, far larger than it would be if the Aussies were playing in the same way. Thats why its been christened by the English press mainly as bazball. Its such a swing from the traditional way of playing it, that it gets talked about a lot in England.
Again not sure why this seems to annoy so many aussies so much.
On your last points, that will definitely be a factor as we move through the series, particularly if it continues this way where Australia bat for much longer periods. It will lead to long periods in the field for England (and seemingly batting a bowler down if Stokes doesn't start bowling a bit more) and then less recovery time with our own innings as they finish up relatively quickly.
mposh, it’s the name I object to, bazball this, bazball that.
I love aggressive cricket, Ponting, Gilchrist et al did it when they were up and about, so I love that the poms are playing that way, Stokes, Root, great players, great strikers but calling it bazball - just sounds so American to me.
Its the name, the vibe, doesn’t sit well with me, nothing against the poms and their tactics.
And yes, 5 test series where the teams are both competitive always throws up curve balls over the course of the series. It’s even money in my books and I still think the home ground advantage means your Englishman are still favourites. I am worried this win will go to the Aussies head.
Oh, by the way, I needed to ask you a question
What do you call an Englishman who is good with a bat?
A vet.
Posh - maybe it's the name 'Bazball' that annoys people? I certainly find it trite.
After all, it is just taken from a kiwi cricketers nickname who now coaches England... and is really just about positive decisions on the cricket oval rather than aggressive ones.
In that context, it's always been around. Sure it's different to stonewalling, but all it's really doing is transplanting T20 and One Day cricket theories into the Test Arena.
Look at Bodyline as a reference, or the West Indies golden age, the Baggy Green at various stages ....
It's an interesting indictment on English cricket if they think it's revolutionary ...
I think simply because its hyped as if the Poms invented aggressive cricket, which obviously isn't the case. But as I said earlier, the hype isn't all bad, its all part of the show.
Fair. I think its more the context of what it means to English cricket. For several other nations (particularly Australia and the Windies of old), the premise of what Baxball represents isn't revolutionary but to English cricket it is. We've always focused on the dopur boring opener, who will blunt the new ball with defensive strokes. This was always our way. Even with such a great cricketer that Alistair Cook was, he needed to play this way. The way the media would turn on players like Pietersen if he played an iffy stroke that was aggressive and got out, was endemic of what English cricket was about. If you play dour boring cricket and get out, well thats the game, if you try to be too overly aggressive then its your fault etc and we know how critical and over the top the British tabloids can be.
This mentality change whether you want to give it a name or not, is a revolutionary change in English cricket even if its not at a world level and to quote artball, yes that probably is an indictment on where English cricket has been and why English cricket very nearly disappeared during the 90's. As an 80's baby, I grew up through the 90's and we didn't really even play cricket in school. It was played by those from the sub-continent at lunch times, but that was mainly it. We would play rounders, tennis etc as summer sports, but rarely cricket.
The change did start in that mid 2000's era when we won the Ashes in 2005, but soon slipped back. This change has been well needed in English cricket whether we give it a name or not, it doesn't really matter, but the change to English cricket by this mentality change is profound.
As I mentioned in my previous post, its hype developed from where English cricket has been. The hype is generated in English cricket. If the media want to portray that as something else, thats the media, but the hype is around a significant mentality change in the way that English teams approach cricket.
Yeah understand all that and don't disagree, but the side has embraced the hype, which is neither good nor bad, but live by the sword, die by the sword, doing that has its pros and cons.
I can criticise it as hype, but that doesn't mean I think its a bad thing. As I said earlier, on balance, its been a success IMO.
It makes for interesting next episodes:
stick with it and improve? Stick with it and go backwards?
revert to type and improve? Revert to type and go backwards?
Mix of all of the above? What is bazball and what isn't? Its interesting.
Agree Posh. I think its the aussie way to almost not want to acknowledge something great in sport of we didn't "invent" it.
And it's a pretty darn successful gimmick to have worked in 10 victories in 13 tests? With a squad that was losing somehting like 6 of its last 7 or 8 tests?
Hatred of the Poms is ingrained but you should at least acknowledge that the impact of the change in approach has had a big influence on how a lot of teams are approaching the game. And created huge interest in this Ashes series.
And McCullum strikes me as a terrific fellow.
kinda funny then that the Baggy Green won the test with an opener - Usman Khawaja - who typifies that 'patient' approach of Alistair Cook and others ... Usman contributed hugely to the win ..
that tells me that a balance needs to be found in the way the game at Test level is played.. some of this, some of that .. don't go all in on something, because over 4 innings and 5 days things can shift ...
it seemed that the English teams mindset wasn't so flexible, even though their 'new way' supposedly promotes flexibility ...
I do agree with your point. We have see the likes of Gilchrist, Sehwag and Viv Richards who regularly scored quickly. But they played their natural game. The English batsmen are being told to go out and score as many runs as possible as quickly as possible by whatever means necessary.
It is not only entertaining, but also aims to put pressure back on the bowling team, to drop fielders back, take out catching positions etc.
Maybe the next step is to then slow down and take the easy runs that will follow.
Yeah I agree with this. We are only 14 tests into this new style of English cricket (which we have won 11 of them) so its been successful, but as with any strategy, it generally needs tweaking at times. Maybe this is the series that exposes the weaknesses of the approach and allows a bit of a tweak, Root was good at capitalising on the tactic especially against the quicks, but less so against Lyon so he was tried to push it, we've had several out trying to reverse sweep Lyon. I suspect they will look at how they handled Lyon and hopefully will look to conserve a little bit. You can still be aggressive but maybe it will be toned down somewhat.
Its been a successful change for English cricket and has garnered a lot of interest, but as with anything, sometimes things need to be tweaked to optimise better.
Having said that, had Bairstow taken some of those 4 missed opportunities then we could be sitting here and praising the approach by England even more, but I do agree that sometimes the approach should be moved around a bit, and in some ways Stokes himself showed that in the 2nd innings with his initial focus when he got to the crease was to defend and give him some time at the crease to get his eye in.
‘If all the pitches are like that I’m done’: Anderson hints at retirement
England’s most successful bowler, Jimmy Anderson, suggests flat pitches like the one served up for the first Test in Edgbaston may drive him out of the game.
Clearly not everyone wants slow pitches.
