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Interesting article about the planning the Aussies have done. One quote stands out:

"Each England batter was assessed in turn, with as many as six alternative fields drawn up to cater for their respective strengths and weaknesses."

Would suggest that we're being proactively conservative, rather than 'sitting back and waiting for a mistake' as some of the Sky commentators were saying.
 
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mrposhman said:
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.
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Yeah Tim Paine alluded to as much yesterday. Recounted one of the English players, maybe Stokes, on a recent tour saying they will take this Bazball stuff as far as it can until it breaks then reign in back in.

Paine also made another very good observation. Questioning if there is anyone else in the changeroom (coach or player) with the confidence to stand up to McCullum and Stokes.

i.e. before the declaration was made - "Hang on a sec lads, our best player is 120 odd and has them on their knees, there is a stack of time in the game, why declare now?

Maybe it was, who knows, the impression Leysy has is that everyone is looking up to McCullum as some sort of god and isn't. That may change when results do though.
 
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So I’m a bit wary of Bazball and appreciate the supporters on here.

When folks point out that there are similarities to Richmond’s chaos ball, they are correct.

Aggressively offensive, positive mental intent, the celebration of imperfection.

The elimination of anxiety, essentially. A powerful and alluring dream.

But I don’t think the concept works as well in a cricketing context as it does in the AFL one.

In footy, mistakes are smothered over by the game itself - often they are remedied by a team mate. The worst mistake costs six points - hardly a hanging offence.

The problem with ‘cavalier cricket’ - which is essentially what Bazball is - is that the costs can be extreme, game-breaking even.

Costs that are magnified against quality opposition.

If England persists with Bazball for the rest of this Ashes series, their inevitable mistakes will cost them dearly simply because you cannot get away with them in this sport and against Australia.

It is all well and good to foster a healthy platform for removing sporting anxiety and entertaining the crowd in the process, but I’m not sure it works in cricket, the cruellest of sports when it comes to errors of judgement and execution.
 
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Well done to the Aussies ladies in winning the only test in the Ashes series, now for the T 20's and ODI's.
How about Ashleigh Gardner's 12 wickets !! We beat the Pommy ladies with Ashball.
 
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Carter said:
It is all well and good to foster a healthy platform for removing sporting anxiety and entertaining the crowd in the process, but I’m not sure it works in cricket, the cruellest of sports when it comes to errors of judgement and execution.
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Their results completely contradict this. Completely.

You know pre Stokes/McCullum they one 1 of their previous 17 tests? They then won 10 of their next 11 post Stokes/McCullum. That's like West Coast coming out next season and winning 10 of their first 11. They won away in Pakistan. They beat India. Sth Africa. New Zealand. Yes, their biggest test is coming now but they made most of the running in the first test.

I'm almost barracking for the Poms to win given the derision for their positive gameplan on here. Why are so many hungup on a title? Plenty of judgements of MCCullum and Stokes character whilst knowing *smile* all about what is said inside the dressing room. And it clearly works. And McCullum is one of the most honest, generous & admirable leaders in sport I can recall.

And I don't want to see a green top as we will have another 3 day test.
 
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tigerman said:
Well done to the Aussies ladies in winning the only test in the Ashes series, now for the T 20's and ODI's.
How about Ashleigh Gardner's 12 wickets !! We beat the Pommy ladies with Ashball.
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Considering some of the batting scores on another road, during that match 12 wickets is simply a mind boggling performance.
 
IanG said:
Interesting article about the current Australian team:
www.theage.com.au

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 www.theage.com.au
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Nothing that David Parkin did years ago at Carlscum. Learned that he had a very experienced, dedicated and talented senior group of players and to a certain degree allowed them to be responsible for getting themselves ready for match day.

After the sandpaper gate fiasco the Aussie team needed someone to drive the ethos of the team and kick a bunch of arses into line. That was Langer, his type of coaching at that elite level wears fairly thin in a hurry though once the boundaries and guidelines have been established.
 
MD Jazz said:
Their results completely contradict this. Completely.

You know pre Stokes/McCullum they one 1 of their previous 17 tests? They then won 10 of their next 11 post Stokes/McCullum. That's like West Coast coming out next season and winning 10 of their first 11. They won away in Pakistan. They beat India. Sth Africa. New Zealand. Yes, their biggest test is coming now but they made most of the running in the first test.

I'm almost barracking for the Poms to win given the derision for their positive gameplan on here. Why are so many hungup on a title? Plenty of judgements of MCCullum and Stokes character whilst knowing *smile* all about what is said inside the dressing room. And it clearly works. And McCullum is one of the most honest, generous & admirable leaders in sport I can recall.

And I don't want to see a green top as we will have another 3 day test.
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Saw a pic of Lords today, looks pretty green.
 
Bazball being great for test cricket and it being successful in this ashes series aren’t the same thing, or they may not be. There are too many people equating Bazball success to winning the Ashes imo, I reckon it has already been successful.
To me they have made test cricket interesting again. What have we got other than Australia and England in test cricket now in reality? A bunch of average test teams playing average cricket and good Indian team that is almost unbeatable on doctored pitches at home
England has breathed life back in test cricket again, it’s fun to watch and to me it is Bazball that makes this series fascinating.
Whether it will win them the series I don’t know but it has certainly made it far more interesting
 
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The best way for the Aussies to conteract Baz Ball is bat them into the ground by wearing down their bowlers.
 
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mrposhman said:
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.
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Not that long ago most sides were scoring at about 2.6 runs per over in test cricket and five day games often meandered off into nothing more than nil all draws for a lot of hard work. When the Aussies started to get into some of their dominant cricket they were often scoring at about 3.6 runs per over and usually winning in four days. Since all the T20 cricket has ramped up in recent years, the Poms under McCullum have simply adapted that style into their game plan. Considering the amount of games they were losing n coaches they were sacking playing the old stodge style test cricket, they had to try something to get back into the contests.

Just as an aside to this, Brisvegas, Moggies, Hawforn, Richmond all came out and adjusted the game style and had successful eras while everyone scrambled to catch up. Poms have simply adjusted the game style and been very successful at it, while everyone else has been trying to work it out. Now we'll see how it plays out against a style the Aussies have been playing for a long time with very consistent success. One up for us at the moment, but there was barely a bees *smile* of difference in the result.
I'm certainly pissed off that I only get to watch the first session before I need an old fart nap so I'm right for work the next day. Love a genuine full on bare knuckle Ashes test.
 
TigerMasochist said:
Considering some of the batting scores on another road, during that match 12 wickets is simply a mind boggling performance.
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Yeah it was a great effort, she's a star.

Ecclestone, the Pommy spinner did well too, she took 10 wickets, from almost 80 overs.
 
Sintiger said:
Bazball being great for test cricket and it being successful in this ashes series aren’t the same thing, or they may not be. There are too many people equating Bazball success to winning the Ashes imo, I reckon it has already been successful.
To me they have made test cricket interesting again. What have we got other than Australia and England in test cricket now in reality? A bunch of average test teams playing average cricket and good Indian team that is almost unbeatable on doctored pitches at home
England has breathed life back in test cricket again, it’s fun to watch and to me it is Bazball that makes this series fascinating.
Whether it will win them the series I don’t know but it has certainly made it far more interesting
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I dont like England (in cricket) so i dont like "Bazball"
I dont like things (especially in sport) the media pump up (I always struggled with Cyril Rioli for this reason) so I dont like "Bazball"

But really you are right, while i love the battle of test cricket, attacking cricket is still more exciting, and the hype is driving even more interest in test cricket, so "Bazball" is a good thing, and hopefully it can influence the style of other test playing countries the way Richmond's "Chaos" ball has led to more attacking football across the AFL.
 
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TigerMasochist said:
I'm certainly pissed off that I only get to watch the first session before I need an old fart nap so I'm right for work the next day. Love a genuine full on bare knuckle Ashes test.
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Thought you'd be retired. Suprised you can make it past 7.30pm. You'd almost be awake for the last session though?
 
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