England vs Pakistan: England's 'Bazball' template was overly centred on batting
The talk of England's new all-guns-blazing approach to Test cricket – popularly referred to as 'Bazball' in honour of new head coach Brendon McCullum – has taken centre stage once again after their exploits against Pakistan in the first Test.
Test cricket – popularly referred to as 'Bazball' in honour of new head coach Brendon McCullum.Talk of Bazball has been going on since earlier this year, but the talk went into overdrive, given the sheer number of runs the team piled on.
However, a critical note was that Pakistan's batting, despite being the inferior team on paper, nearly took them to a win in the first Test.
This can at least partly be attributed to the road of a pitch served up at Rawalpindi – you know a pitch is terrible when it leads to the host nation's board president saying that Pakistan will take years to build a good Test pitch.
But it has understandably raised questions about England's bowling and whether Bazball is too batting-oriented.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I stand by what I said. That declaration was a poor one. Ends don't always justify the means. With 100-110 overs possible, a target of 343 wasn't ideal given ENG's bowling attack which had 3.5 bowlers. PAK batted really poorly to lose. Should see the no of soft dismissals <a href="https://t.co/OuLT8LO06l">https://t.co/OuLT8LO06l</a></p>— Gurkirat Singh Gill (@gurkiratsgill) <a href="https://twitter.com/gurkiratsgill/status/1599733083485655040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Let's look at both questions. Firstly, Bazball is very batting oriented and is focused very heavily on the batters being aggressive in all phases of the innings.
It is in some ways understandable, given the proponent of the style was himself a renowned batsman of the destructive mould that dominates the world of white ball cricket today.
But it's also not an entirely fair representation, given aggression and playing on the front foot is something a bowling attack can also easily replicate.
The problem comes when you look at England's pace bowling – and the two strike bowlers, James Anderson and Ollie Robinson, and, to an extent, Ben Stokes himself.
Yes, both Robinson and Anderson succeeded in the second innings, but there were many spells when it seemed like England's pace bowling line-up desperately missed someone like Mark Wood or Jofra Archer.
The lack of an express pace bowler and the ineffectiveness of the spinners Will Jacks, Joe Root, and Jack Leach impacted England more than an adherence to a template.
But while it may be a problem that McCullum inherited rather than created, that doesn't change the fact that it is still an issue that will need to be addressed by them.
To England's credit, they have been preparing pacers to one day move on from the likes of Anderson and Stuart Broad.
And the team are also preparing to blood a new young spin bowler in Rehan Ahmed, a prodigy who made waves due to being called up for the tour despite his very young age.
So yes, there is an issue there for England regarding the variety of their bowling attack. But fully addressing the problem will take some time, and it won't happen immediately.
As of now, however, it's fair to say that the effect of the new regime of Stokes & McCullum has positively impacted English cricket.
But if they can fix the issues, they could see the Test side become as dominant as the white ball team.