Latest news with #BrendonMcCullum
CNA
an hour ago
- Sport
- CNA
Sun is out as England and India get highly-anticipated test series under way
LEEDS, England :England won the toss and put India in to bat as the titans of test cricket get their five-match series under way at Headingley on Thursday, with both teams at very different stages of their journey. Leeds was a vibrant scene ahead of the start of the series opener, with colourful India supporters especially keen to see how their team do without three recently-retired stalwarts of the game: Ravichandran Ashwin, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. India have not played a test on English soil without former skipper Kohli at the helm since 2011, with Shubman Gill, at 25, becoming his country's fifth-youngest captain. Gill's counterpart, Ben Stokes, got the upper hand early on, winning the toss and putting the tourists in to bat first. History played its part in Stokes' thinking - teams bowling first have won each of the previous six tests at Headingley. This series begins a potentially era-defining period for Stokes and England coach Brendon McCullum, having enjoyed plenty of highs and lows over the past few years, with the Ashes series in Australia next up in the test format, starting in November. While England's batting lineup for the India opener has plenty of experience in it, their bowling attack is missing some big-hitters through injury. Seamers Josh Tongue and Brydon Carse amassing eight test appearances between them so far.
Times
an hour ago
- Sport
- Times
England vs India live: scores and updates from first Test day one
Elizabeth Ammon at Headingley KL Rahul got off the mark in unconvincing fashion trying to drive a full-length ball and getting a thick edge through the vacant gully region. There's definitely some movement in the air, which is encouraging for England. There's a full house at Headingley today, it's sold out for the first three days in fact. Elizabeth Ammon at Headingley Chris Woakes is opening up from the Kirskstall Lane end and England are on the attack early — four slips and a wide gully and there's some early away swing. The sun is trying to break through the haze and the Barmy Army have broken into their traditional early rendition of Jerusalem. The first boundary of the day comes as Jaiswal edges one with controlled hands through third man. Brydon Carse will take the new ball from the Rugby Ground end. Yashasvi Jaiswal (averaging a fairly peachy 52.88) takes his guard as Chris Woakes takes the new ball from the Kirkstall Lane end. A solid forward defensive meets a ball from a good length, and the series is officially under way! Elizabeth Ammon at Headingley Brendon McCullum is a good man to have in charge in a series against India. In his time as a player his Test career average of 38 climbs to 68 against India, with four centuries in ten Tests. He says he always viewed India as just about the greatest challenge and that he stepped his game up against them — hitting a double century and a triple century against the side for New Zealand in the 2014 two-match Test series. Decent stats. Here's how the visiting side will line up. There's a debut for Sai Sudharsan at No3 and the long-awaited return of Karun Nair, a triple centurion against England who played his most recent Test in March 2017. 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 KL Rahul, 3 B Sai Sudharsan, 4 Shubman Gill (capt), 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Karun Nair, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Prasidh Krishna, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj. Elizabeth Ammon at Headingley England have won the toss and will bowl first, as predicted by Steve Harmison and Jeremy Coney below. It's hazy but hot, but it's likely to do a bit today and flatten out tomorrow. There are some storms predicted tomorrow but only isolated ones. There has only been one drawn Test here in the past 11, against South Africa in 2012. Mike Atherton, at Headingley There is no question Ben Stokes has transformed the England team. In outlook and attitude it is totally different from the one he inherited, more assertive and confident in every way, but they still lack a significant scalp. This summer against India and the winter down under both provide that opportunity, which has been greeted with a subtle shift in language and emphasis. 'It's about winning,' Stokes said on the eve of the first Test at Headingley. To do that, Stokes will have to be at his best as a player. Because of his dominant personality and radical approach as a leader, we sometimes overlook the importance of his performances on the field, but it is time for him to remind everyone again what a good cricketer he is. The balance he brings to the team is crucial, and there is no one else in the country who can hold down that role as a top-six batsman and frontline bowler. ● Read in full: Ben Stokes has lifted England as a leader — now they need the all-rounder Elizabeth Ammon, at Headingley Both teams will wear black armbands on day one of the match as a mark of respect for those who lost their lives in the Air India plane crash last week in Ahmedabad. A moment's silence will be observed prior to the respective national anthems. Elizabeth Ammon, at Headingley We haven't had a Test here at Headingley since 2023 and since then some new furniture has arrived on the players balcony. We've got a couple of parasols, which are going to be much needed today. It's going to be a scorcher. Elizabeth Ammon, at Headingley Good morning from Headingley where it is warm but a bit hazy overhead. The pitch looks like a belter but I've just had a chat with Steve Harmison and Jeremy Coney, who are commentating for talkSPORT and they both said that they think if England win the toss they might bowl — it will do a bit day one, it flattens out from day two and England like to chase. The players are out on the field, some doing yoga, some in the nets, some doing not very much. A reminder of the England team taking to the field today, and the series details. England XI Z Crawley, B Duckett, O Pope, J Root, H Brook, B Stokes (c), J Smith (wk), C Woakes, B Carse, J Tongue, S Bashir It's been a long time coming but England's five-Test series with India is finally upon us. It's the start of a defining stretch for Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes' Bazball project — as they are happy to admit — with the Ashes to come this winter, and India will make for fascinating opposition. The retirements of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin mean this is a very different team arriving on English shores, and it is the new captain, Shubman Gill, charged with leading this relatively inexperienced group. Join Elizabeth Ammon for all the updates from Headingley today.
India Today
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- India Today
What is Bazball and should India be scared of it?
Bazball. Bazball. Bazball. It is always only about Bazball. Irritating frankly. For the amount of hype that it gets, Bazball has not really won England the world title in two separate World Test Championship India get ready to play England in a 5-match Test series, it is once again about Bazball. To be fair, the hype had been a little less this time, but it was Joe Root, who once again triggered the term, stating that Bazball never quite got the credit for the tactical nuance that it carried with might not always get reported how it is—I don't think 'Bazball' is the right way to describe it. It has been a big change and is different to how a lot of teams play, but there is a lot more method to it than is probably perceived," the former England captain said a day before the start of the opening Test match in Headingly. That then, obviously demands the question, what really is Bazball?The funniest thing perhaps is that Bazball, the highly aggressive form of cricket, with both bat and ball, which promised to make Test cricket more interesting, is a term hated by its multiple occasions, England Test cricketers have come out and gone on record that Baz (Brendon McCullum) believes that Bazball is a term given by the media to hype up England's approach to Test captain Ben Stokes in early 2024 said that England cricketers actively tried to stay out of it.'It's a phrase that was created by the media. Something that we try and stay away from. It just came from what we have managed to do over the last two years and how we've played. We don't necessarily like it, Baz (coach Brendon McCullum) hates it! Whenever that word pops up, we just try to say that's how England plays Test cricket,' Stokes told the media going into England's Test tour of India in is that not what England set out to do? Bring back crowd with a high-risk brand of cricket?What Goes Into Bazball?Under the tutelage of Brendon McCullum, the England cricket team have tried to play a very non-traditional form of Test cricket. Ultra-aggressive with the bat, the team has declared their innings on Day 1 on occasions. This has led to Test matches being fast on flat tracks, teams that have not been able to match the tempo, have been routed. Ask Pakistan in 2022, who were blown out of the water in their own home (0-3) by this English team. On pitches where other teams had to toil, score 500 runs over 2 days, and then wait patiently for the other team to collapse, England simply said 'No, too much work. I rather blast 500 in 3 sessions and freak the opposition out till they hand me the match themselves'.advertisementThe tactic has worked on several occasions, and failed miserably in goes without saying that McCullum has been able to identify a crop of players who are suited to his style of playing. One of the key differentiators among the current crop of England batters against the rest of the world is how many balls do they leave (shoulder arms) at the start of their innings. A look at just one of England's matches and things become clear that unlike the majority of the world, the England openers like to dominate their opponents from the very start of the match. Someone like Ben Duckett wants to get the feel of the ball early in the innings. Zak Crawley wants to get into his long stride and drive the ball through the the summer of 2019, till Brendon McCullum took over the team, England's batting was in tatters. Joe Root, their lead scorer in that period grafted the innings. If he was able to score big runs, it gave the England side enough cushion to bowl oppositions out, something that they did in Sri England batters between 2019 to May 2022Joe RootRuns: 1243Strike Rate: 51.42Rory BurnsRuns: 1077Strike Rate: 41.74Ben StokesRuns: 813Strike Rate: 56.77Jos ButtlerRuns: 735Strike Rate: 47.88Dom SibleyRuns: 484Strike Rate: 32.18Since Brendon McCullum took over the side, the make-up of that top 5 batters list looks very different. Joe Root still leads the scoring charts, and at a much faster rate. Root has been so prolific in the Brendon McCullum era that the expectation is that he would cross everyone and become the second-highest scorer in Test cricket history by the end of this series is 370-odd runs away from overtaking Ricky Ponting - and England fans are positive that he will be able to score those runs in the 5 matches against Root, the other batters have also scored runs at a rapid rate. Openers Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley have been prolific, and so has been vice-captain Ollie Pope. The only issue that Pope perhaps suffers is the jitteriness at the start of the innings. If he is able to get past the 20-run mark after the first one hour of batting, Pope usually looks like a sensational No.3 batter in the England Test Batters in the Bazball Era (2022–2025)Joe RootRuns: 1783Strike Rate: 70.81Ollie PopeRuns: 1352Strike Rate: 76.16Zak CrawleyRuns: 1045Strike Rate: 77.29Ben DuckettRuns: 1007Strike Rate: 88.87Jonny BairstowRuns: 1003Strike Rate: 89.31According to the data crunched by Cricbuzz, England batters have been playing good length balls better in home conditions than any team in the me explain. Since 2022, England's batters have averaged 30.73 against good-length balls in home Tests. To put things in perspective, visiting batters in England during this period have averaged a mere 13.39 off good-length has directly affected England's batting stocks (home conditions), shooting their average at home to an incredible 43.86, the second best among all countries in the world. England have bullied teams with the bat at home, which nearly helped them take back the Ashes in 2023 from the then World Test Champions Australia, who had annihilated India in the final of the Batting Averages by Host Country (Since 2022)Sri LankaAvg (Since 2022): 44.39Avg (2018–21): 35.51EnglandAvg (Since 2022): 43.86Avg (2018–21): 32.25AustraliaAvg (Since 2022): 40.25Avg (2018–21): 44.01New ZealandAvg (Since 2022): 38.91Avg (2018–21): 55.28PakistanAvg (Since 2022): 37.87Avg (2018–21): 45.00IndiaAvg (Since 2022): 37.45Avg (2018–21): 50.52South AfricaAvg (Since 2022): 35.74Avg (2018–21): 32.98BangladeshAvg (Since 2022): 31.42Avg (2018–21): 32.89West IndiesAvg (Since 2022): 29.22Avg (2018–21): 25.68This incredible rebirth of England's batting perhaps needs a little more May 2022, just before Brendon McCullum took over, England were 6th in the ICC table with just 88 points to their name - far away from their arch-rivals Australia, who had a rating of 128 at the were so bad, that this was their lowest ranking in the Test fray since 1995. Wherever they travelled to, they failed to put up a fight. Between the summers of 2020-2022, England played 26 Test matches, winning just 7 and losing 12. Despite a series win in Sri Lanka, that period of England was marked with massive uncertainty amongst the players and vs IND, 1st Test: Preview"I would change Covid. The fact we played as many games as we did in those environments, I don't think, was fair on the group. We were playing to keep the lights on and win games of cricket," Root had told Sky Sports in an interview reflecting on that pinnacle of the uncertainty reached in Ashes 2020/21, when Pat Cummins' Australia ripped apart the English side, a series that eventually led to Joe Root being dropped as the England it is in this context that we have to look at Birth of BazballAfter their losses in Australia and West Indies, England needed something drastic. Former England captain Rob Key took over the reins at the ECB (English and Wales Cricket Board) and decided to appoint Brendon McCullum as the head coach of the England Test this time, McCullum was coaching Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League, and had no credentials of coaching any international side at came in with a simple idea. Attack with the bat, attack with the ball, make Test cricket entertaining brought in assurances that players would be backed despite their failures, as long as they were on board with the brand of cricket he wanted to from there on, magic won against New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and even a home Test against was the Test match against India where the entertainment turned into 378, completely out of the game for the first two days of the (rescheduled) Test match, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root turned up the theatrics of that game was incredible. A fired-up Virat Kohli sledged Bairstow relentlessly on Day 3, at a time when he could not get bat to ball. That sledging had the opposite effect to what the Indian side would have hoped for, as Bairstow started going hammer and tongs against Mohammed Siraj and Shardul Stokes IndiaSelection dilemmasVirat Kohli, Ashwin & SharmaAnd a team movie-night our full interview with Ben Stokes ahead of tomorrow's first Test now— England Cricket (@englandcricket) June 19, 2025Bar Jasprit Bumrah, who picked up 2 wickets in the final innings, none of the India bowlers could take a single wicket. Bairstow and Root scored hundreds, chasing down an unlikely target at Birmingham, with that Test match, Bazball was truly there on, it was Bazball, Bazball, Bazball. Irritating frankly, but there was no denying that, the method worked. More importantly, it was an entertaining watch, and there was no point complaining about the fallacies of the ultra-aggressive approach and if it would have been successful in tough overseas Contrasts of BazballFor all the folklore that Bazball has amassed, it can be argued that Bazball has its flat tracks, which England are now dishing out at home, it is a superbly efficient way of spooking out the opposition teams. Brendon McCullum's England have been successful at home, in Pakistan (2022) and in New Zealand, which now offer the flattest pitches on earth in Test when they have been faced with sporting pitches, wickets that have a hint of turn in them, England have collapsed. They were hammered by India in 2024, and then again lost to Pakistan in rank turners, later in the same needs to be reminded that Bazballing England are yet to face South Africa, Australia and Sri Lanka away from home, three teams known to be exceptionally strong in their own lack of wins away from home has resulted in failure to reach the World Test Championship twice in a row. Three, if you include the period with Chris it is also true that England are ranked as the third-best side in the world in the Test format, a huge achievement for a side who were tottering at the bottom half of the table just before McCullum took over the Lies Ahead?There is no doubt that under Brendon McCullum, England have been able to revive their culture of Test cricket. However, the time of flashes is perhaps gone and it is now time to give consistent results. McCullum is in his third year of coaching this English side, and now they simply cannot be about the vibes any win here, another win there, and a multitude of near-misses will not be driving the narrative of the side, should not be driving the narrative of the is time that England aim higher, a belief that they would perhaps get if they win the India Test series. You May Also Like
Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Sport
- Telegraph
Shubman Gill wants India to dominate – Ben Stokes will have other ideas
Shubman Gill can never be accused of lacking confidence. Gill, the new India captain, has his nickname 'Prince' stamped on his cricket bat and he is going to need that self-assurance when he comes face to face with Ben Stokes over the next six weeks. Under Stokes and Brendon McCullum, England have carved out a new style and, for all its ups and downs, Bazball achieves one thing; it rattles opposing captains. Pat Cummins, Rohit Sharma and Tom Latham have all spoken in the past about how they have had to reconsider their tactics and respond to the way England, and Stokes, challenge their thinking. Holding your nerve and staying calm is easier said than done when face to face with England on the charge. Cummins's eyes were spinning like a fruit machine at Old Trafford two years ago as England went on the rampage, and that image will remain with England as they prepare for the Ashes this winter. Gill will require a stiff backbone in his first series as captain, leading one of the world's most scrutinised sports teams, as they embark on the challenge of winning a series in England for the first time since 2007. Gill has inherited the No 4 position too, which in itself would be enough responsibility for a 25-year-old to handle without the burden of leadership. The role has been held by Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli since the early 1990s, before Gill was born, let alone picked up a cricket bat for the first time on his father's farm in the Punjab. Gill comes to the job with a Test average of 35 and much to prove away from home. He averages 29 outside of India and 31 against pace, which will be what England will throw at him in Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue. But it is the ultimate challenge, and Gill is relishing it. He has the world at his feet. Whether he can seize the moment will become clearer over the next five Tests. 'Hopefully we find ourselves in a position where he might scramble his own mind but we will not go out there purposely to put pressure on a new captain,' said Stokes, but he knows from his time playing in India the pressure Gill is under. On the For the Love of Cricket podcast this week, England's Jos Buttler said: 'I don't think we can quite understand the level of interest and the stardom that these guys have. You see it around the IPL [Indian Premier League], you're aware of it, but actually living that yourself… I think they say the Indian Test captain is like the third or fourth most influential person in India, behind the prime minister etc – so you really are put up on that pedestal. It's going to be a huge job for him.' 'I want to be the best batsman in the series' The first question of Gill's initial captain's press conference was about his 'coronation moment' and whether he had grasped the 'enormity' of the responsibility thrust upon him. If the job can be likened to the prime minister's office then Gill has a politician inside him. He straight-batted every question while saying all the right things. Sitting back in his chair and exuding calmness, he acknowledged the 'biggest honour' a player can have by captaining India in Test cricket and identified winning a five-Test series in England as a bigger achievement than lifting the IPL title. He shrugged off any thoughts he will walk to the crease with a target on his back now he is captain. 'I want to play as a batsman and dominate opposition and be the best batsman in the series. That is what I am trying to look at.' Buttler played under Gill for Gujarat Titans in the IPL and believes his captaincy will be a mix of Kohli's hot-headedness and Rohit's level-headedness. Kohli was never a tactical genius, but he gave an edge to India that has permeated through to the next generation; Gill sledged Jonny Bairstow and James Anderson in the last series against England and has been known to upset umpires in the IPL. Gautam Gambhir, the coach, is a 'prickly character' to quote Ricky Ponting, and he will expect his young captain to be punchy and reflect the self-confidence of Indian cricket. Gill has consulted both Kohli and Rohit about captaining in England and will lean on Gambhir for advice. Together they want to build a team where players 'feel secure and valued', giving them a longer rope, which will involve shutting out the noise and resisting the pressure to change tack when things inevitably go wrong at some stage. A captain is only as good as his bowling attack and in Jasprit Bumrah, Gill possesses the ace. To average 19 in Test cricket in the modern era of bigger bats, aggressive batsmen and flat pitches makes Bumrah a true great of the game; a bowler who can take wickets on any surface at any stage of an innings. Bumrah captained India in Australia when Rohit was unavailable, but the job went to Gill on a full-time basis because of workload fears. Bumrah will play at least three Tests against England, and how Gill uses him will determine whether he has the puff left for a fourth. 'He is young and energetic, he has his own thought process, and that is how it should be. If he needs anything from me, I will always be there for him,' Bumrah said about Gill this week. The pitch at Headingley is green but dry underneath, and, with sunny weather forecast, the groundsman is leaving the grass on it to try to prevent it breaking up for as long as possible. It is not going to be the seaming paradise on which Anderson and Ollie Robinson rolled India for 78 in the first innings four years ago. That series ended with India going home due to a Covid scare while 2-1 up. When they came back a year later to finish off the series, England had been rejuvenated by Bazball and romped to victory at Edgbaston. This time it is India and Gill's chance to show they are the team setting the agenda, and trying to spark new life into their Test team. 'Our side is not experienced but doesn't have any baggage coming to England, because not all have been here before. That could make a difference,' Gill said.
New York Times
7 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Crunch time for Bazball: Is it now or never for England's cricketing revolution?
It is the ultimate examination of the most exciting and dynamic brand of Test cricket that has arguably been played. Five Tests against India, starting today at Headingley (Friday), and then another five in Australia this winter will decide if England truly have reinvented cricket's longest and most traditional format, or whether the high-octane, high-risk methods of captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, will fall short of providing the big series victories they need to validate their Test revolution. Advertisement These two series will define the legacy of Stokes and McCullum, and their style, known as 'Bazball', like nothing that has come before in three highly entertaining and largely successful years in tandem. England may have beaten India spectacularly at Edgbaston, Birmingham, in the heady early days of their reign in July 2022, in what was the final Test of a series postponed from the summer before because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and enjoyed a dramatic drawn home Ashes series against Australia in 2023. But if Stokes and McCullum are going to be regarded as the greatest as well as the most fun of them all, they need to add a series victory against India or Australia — preferably both — to their CVs over the next seven months. 'There's always a different buzz when you come up against India and Australia, purely because of how big the series are,' said Stokes on Thursday in the Leeds sunshine as he contemplated the challenges ahead. 'We know what these series mean, but defining my career as England captain isn't something I sit here and think about. 'If that was the way I felt and that was what I was bothered about, then it would be utterly selfish, and that isn't me. I tend not to worry about what people are going to say about me and the job I've done when it all comes to an end.' Plenty has been said about the way Stokes and McCullum have gone about their business, because England have been playing Test cricket their own pioneering way in recent years. A way that is more adventurous and attacking than any side in history, with only Steve Waugh-captained Australia two decades ago, who were known for their positivity — as well as their huge amount of success — coming anywhere near. After being thrown together by the England team's new managing director, Rob Key, Stokes and McCullum took a team that had become passive and dull under the captaincy of Joe Root, winning just one of 17 Tests, and transformed them. Advertisement In their first summer together, England won six out of seven Tests, successfully chasing down what traditionally would have been difficult targets four times, and scored runs during their first year up until June 2023 at 4.65 per over. The peak of Bazball, to date, arrived in December 2022, when England smashed 506 for four in 75 overs at a rate of 6.75 on the first day of their series against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, becoming the first side to score more than 500 runs in a day of Test cricket. They were not afraid to defy convention in other ways, too. Stokes made the earliest first innings declaration in Ashes history in the first Test of the 2023 series, calling England in after 78 overs with his best batter, Root, unbeaten on 118. The idea was to have four overs at Australia before the first day ended, but England failed to take a wicket and ended up losing that thrilling Edgbaston match by two wickets in the final overs of the fifth day — a dampener on the funkiness of Bazball. It could be argued England have been a little more conventional since an Ashes series they almost certainly would have won after being 2-0 down but for the torrential rain that sentenced the fourth Test in Manchester to what is still the only draw in the Stokes-McCullum era. And Stokes spoke of "adapting better" in the difficult moments. "Sometimes, when we've been behind the game, we've not given ourselves the best chance of getting back into it, and that's an area we've looked at," he said. But England under the pair will never take the defensive option and Stokes goes into this pivotal series as the most successful England captain to have led the team in more than 30 Tests, winning 20 of his 33 games in charge at a success rate of 60.6. The man at the top of English cricket, ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) chair Richard Thompson, is delighted with what he has been watching. "They've taken the oldest format pretty much of any sport and, to some extent, reinvented it by playing in a far more attacking way, with bat and ball and tactically," Thompson tells The Athletic. "They have made some incredibly bold calls and Ben's direct ability to make players believe they can win is extraordinary. I saw Adam Hollioake do that at Surrey, but Ben has taken it to another level. There are nuances that Baz (McCullum) brings in around that, too. "Sky Sports has seen a real uplift in a younger audience watching cricket since this started. It's so exciting. Take last year. We had a really wet, miserable summer, and we were competing with the Olympics for attention. Commercially, we weren't playing the strongest opposition in the West Indies and Sri Lanka, but it sold like crazy, and India this year sold out every Test within days. Advertisement "If you look at any pictures of Test cricket in the 1970s, invariably, there were very few people there. The 1950s and 1960s were huge, but there was a period when Test cricket was really dying. Look at it now." The praise is vindication for the decision of former England batsman and Kent captain Key to give up a burgeoning broadcasting career with Sky to take on what had proved a poisoned chalice with the national men's team. "When we started, English cricket was in a pretty low place and I'm incredibly proud of what those two (Stokes and McCullum) have achieved and the way they've gone about it,' Key tells The Athletic. "You've got established players, and a lot at the start and middle of their international journey, and Ben and Brendon are maximising their potential. "Look at the games we've won and the style they've gone about their cricket. You want players to be positive and play in a way that will be more enjoyable for them. And I don't think the team have realised that potential yet because they can get better and better. That's what I'm proudest of." The term Bazball — McCullum's nickname is Baz — was coined by the English journalist Andrew Miller in 2022 and quickly stuck, but it is still one that the players and management themselves reject. "I don't have any idea what 'Bazball' is," McCullum said in a radio interview that same year when it became clear the label was not going away. "It's not just all crash and burn." Key agrees. "I remember when I first saw that term. Brendon said, 'Where's this Bazball come from?'. I said, 'What's going to be funny about this is what they are praising us for at the moment, they will ask us to defend at some point. They're going to ask us to defend this term that we never came up with in the first place'. "To us, it's just about creating an environment players can thrive in, not Bazball. I just believe you've got more of a chance to succeed if you think positively, if you see the opportunity, if you look to score runs and then survive after that. In the simplest terms, the brain works quicker, you're more alert, and you can make better decisions if you think positively. And that's in defence and attack. "At times in English cricket, we feel the danger and the trouble. There have been times when we haven't even bought a raffle ticket — we don't even have a go. We die wondering sometimes. I wanted a team, and a captain, who would risk failure to succeed." A fascinated observer of the Bazball revolution is Sussex coach Paul Farbrace, who was assistant England coach under Peter Moores and then Trevor Bayliss, and a leading figure in kickstarting the England one-day revolution that peaked with the 2019 World Cup success. "It's very easy to talk about playing without fear and consequence and putting on a show, but doing it is the hardest thing to achieve," says Farbrace. "Getting a player to play without fear and anxiety is the greatest thing any coach can do, and I'm full of praise for Stokes and McCullum for the way they've allowed their players to go and play. "They are consistent in terms of the personality and character of the players they want in their team. They don't care what the public perception is of how and who they pick. They choose who they think are the best to play their way. "There have been times when it's been frustrating. Take the Lord's Test against Australia in 2023, when (Australia spin bowler) Nathan Lyon limped off (on day two) and it felt that was the time for England to go and grab the game, but they all got out trying to pull the short ball. It was an opportunity where they had to play the situation rather than keep on doing it their way. Advertisement "So they've polarised opinion, but, ultimately, they have provided great entertainment and they've got more people watching Test cricket." Key insists the suggestion that England are somehow evangelical in their approach may have been exaggerated. "We're getting a bit too carried away with ourselves if we think we're the people who are going to save Test cricket," he says. "We just want it to be fun, enjoyable and have a team people want to come and see. 'Sport is escapism. People want to come and see unbelievably talented players doing things they can't do themselves. Our job is to create an environment where those talented people can thrive and have a story along the way that captures the imagination." But England have had an effect on the wider game. The overall scoring rates in Test cricket have risen since 2022, while even in England's County Championship, there is a push towards positivity, with fewer points awarded for drawn games from the start of the 2023 season and maximum batting points only available to teams who score at a rate of more than four an over. "The game in general has moved forward as a result of what England are doing," says Farbrace. "People are trying to be more positive because they know that if they want to play for England, this is how they are going to have to play. If you are just going to occupy the crease for a period of time, you might not be selected. "It has been a frustration for some when they've seen players get picked who haven't really done anything in county cricket. For instance, Jacob Bethell was chosen when he hadn't scored a hundred, and there might have been players like Joe Clarke at Notts (Nottinghamshire) and others looking at that thinking, 'What do I need to do to play for England?'. "Shoaib Bashir was picked after Stokes saw him bowl six great deliveries on a social-media clip. "But a lot of people who have scored lots of runs and taken lots of wickets at county level haven't been successful with England, and what this regime is saying is, 'We will pick players who we think can play the game at the highest level the way we want it played'." The one major setback of the Bazball era was England's 4-1 series defeat in India early in 2024, which makes the following five matches against the same opponents and then the Ashes from November to January even more important. Bazball has to be seen to work against the best. "We all know — and they know — they're going to be judged on the next six months," says Farbrace. "This is the defining moment for them. Every England team ultimately gets judged on an Ashes series, and the fact we haven't won one since 2015 and not won away since 2011 makes this winter the real test of what they are doing. Advertisement "Everything hangs on the Ashes, and this India series will be a barometer of where they are and whether they're ready for it. If they can win against India and get a lot of confidence from it, then anything can happen in Australia." Key prefers to play down the significance of England's next 10 Tests. "These two series will define us for other people, but for us, not at all," he says. "This is the most exciting year of the time we've been doing this, but there's so much more than just two series for us. "Everything we've done doesn't come down to this. It doesn't mean we haven't done some good stuff before this. I don't think the next year will define my career and my life, but it will be another incredible story to tell." 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