Bazball Agonistes

It really was a struggle by the end. But that is not how it was meant to be. Fortunately people won’t forget that first magnificent summer, 2022, when everything seemed so new and exciting. I watched the first Test of the new regime, against New Zealand at Lord’s. The New Zealand side was not so different from this year’s. Conditions were very different but the scores at the end of the first day were quite similar: in 2022 England were 116 for seven in response to New Zealand’s 132; in 2026 New Zealand were 61 for six, having dismissed England for 140. England, set a target of 277, won by five wickets, with Joe Root making 115 not out. Captain Ben Stokes made a crucial 54, including three sixes. The run rate in the chase was a comfortable but hardly exceptional 3.54. The victory was celebrated as a relief as much as anything; England had won one of their last seventeen matches. No one thought a revolution was taking place.

It was the second game, at Trent Bridge, that really made people sit up and take notice. New Zealand batted first and made 553, which is normally enough to win a Test, or at least ensure it is not lost. England almost matched that, then bowled New Zealand out for 284. Set 299, England again won by five wickets, with Jonny Bairstow making 136 off 92 balls. The run rate was 5.98; now, that was exceptional. In the third Test at Headingley, England won by seven wickets, chasing down a target of 296 at 5.45 an over. A couple of weeks later they beat India at Edgbaston by three wickets chasing down a target of 378 at an unprecedented rate of 5.98 an over. Root and Bairstow had an unbroken partnership of 269; Bairstow had made a hundred in the first innings as well.

This was not just successful Test cricket; there was something genuinely joyful and celebratory about it. To show how English cricket had been transformed under the new regime of Stokes and coach Brendon “Baz” McCullum, it was only necessary to go back a year, to New Zealand’s two-Test series in 2021. In the first Test at Lord’s New Zealand made 378, with debutant Devon Conway scoring 200. England made 275 in reply. Rain interruptions played a part as Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson declared setting England what seemed an eminently gettable 273 in 75 overs: what Sir Humphrey would call a courageous decision. But England just weren’t interested. Opener Dom Sibley made sixty from 207 balls. Fifty came up in the 27^th over. Skipper Root finished on 20 not out, with England 170 for three off 70 overs. New Zealand won the second Test at Edgbaston by eight wickets. That was England, then.

By February 2023 Stokes’ team had won ten and lost two of the first twelve games played under him. This gave him a better start – based on twelve games – than any Test captain other than Australia’s Lindsay Hassett (who had had the advantage of inheriting Don Bradman’s Invincibles). And they weren’t just great chasers: by this time they had clocked up England’s eight fastest first innings. Against Pakistan at Rawalpindi they made 637 at a rate of 6.60 an over. And by this time Stokes had overtaken McCullum as Test cricket’s most prolific six-hitter.

The series in New Zealand in February 2023 saw Bazball at both its most voracious and its most quixotic. England won the first Test at Mount Maunganui by 267 runs. The second Test at Wellington seemed to be heading in a similar direction when Root and Harry Brook put on 302 for England’s fourth wicket in their first innings. But the denouement was unexpected and unsurprisingly rare. With a first innings lead of 226 Stokes enforced the follow-on. New Zealand made 483 in their second innings (Williamson 132) and bowled England out for 256 (Root 95) winning the match by one run. Stokes expressed no regrets about his decision after the event but it is fair to say that this was the first but by no means the last occasion on which England found an unusual way to lose a Test match.

From that point things have not been quite the same. The change was disguised to some extent by the fact that the Ashes series of 2023 was a classic which saw passages of outstanding cricket from both sides. The series was drawn two all and it saw the only drawn match of the Bazball era, the fourth Test at Manchester, which England would almost certainly have won but for rain. That would, or at least might have enabled them to emulate Bradman’s 1936-37 Australians as the only Ashes team to have won a series after being two-nil down. But they didn’t. And they really only had themselves to blame for being two-nil down in the first place.

In the first Test at Edgbaston, Stokes declared on the first evening with England on 393 for eight (at 5 runs an over) with Root in irresistible form on 118 not out, and Ollie Robinson very comfortable on 18. Why on earth declare, you might ask. England took no wickets that night, and Australia won a tight game on the final evening by two wickets.

The second Test at Lord’s was another fantastic game (I was there every day). Australia won by 43 runs, but if Stokes’ extraordinary fifth day innings of 155 had carried on for another twenty minutes or so, England would probably have won. But in reality England were their own worst enemies. On the second afternoon they were in a positive position, 188 for one in response to Australia’s 416, with Nathan Lyon limping off the field with a leg injury. Then the Australians decided to bowl short. This is an increasingly common tactic, especially by England. It rarely works, but on this occasion it did. 188 for one rapidly became 222 for four. “Once bitten but never shy”, as Gideon Haigh put it, “England’s set batters popped up foul balls.” Perhaps for the first time but certainly not the last, spectators sat wondering “What are they doing?” The last time, it can be safely said, was the fourth innings of the recently concluded third Test against New Zealand at Nottingham when Stokes began England’s pursuit of [] with a reverse scoop for four and Brook made 21 off nine balls. This was a sad showcase for Bazball at its worst.

The struggle got serious after that 2023 Ashes series. India beat them four-one in India. The home series against India in 2025 was another classic and another draw. Again England should have won the series but for another kamikaze batting display in the fifth Test at The Oval. There was a final, dazzling Bazball run chase at Headingley: 373 for five at 4.55 (the same target as at Trent Bridge in 2026). There was a series loss in Pakistan, after a huge win in the first game at Multan. There were Tests needlessly lost to Sri Lanka at The Oval and New Zealand at Hamilton: New Zealand won by 423 runs, Williamson making 156 in their second innings. England won both series.

And then there was The Ashes 2025-26. That is basically why England find themselves in the mess they are in now. Four-one is sort of better than four-nil, the result in Root’s two tours in 2017-18 and 2020-21. But it felt much worse. It’s the hope that kills you as they say. This was supposed to be England’s best chance of winning since 2010-11. But in fact the series seemed lost almost before it had started: England had been on top at lunch on the second day of the first Test at Perth; by the end of that day Australia had won the match. It was going to be hard to come back after that and so it proved. Everything went badly. It was as though the people charged with preparing the side for five Tests in Australia had only just been informed of the fact, rather than having four years’ notice. Selection verged on the bizarre, especially with regard to spin. Australia did not have it that easy. Of their much vaunted four-man bowling attack, Lyon, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood played three matches between them. The reserves were far too good for England. Melbourne was a lottery and England turned out better on those two days.

When Test cricket resumed in June it was business as usual for England, the only sacrificial lamb for the Ashes fiasco being Zak Crawley. My own view was that England would be strong enough to beat this summer’s opponents. New Zealand and Pakistan.

Oh well, you can’t be right every time. I saw every ball of the Lord’s Test. I imagine Melbourne must have been similar. What with the weather the Lord’s game lasted little more than two full days. A lot of pundits said the visitors seemed under-cooked. It is true that they dropped an unusual number of catches. Tom Latham, their captain, gave a more compelling reason: he said the pitch was the most difficult he had played on in Tests.

And then there was Chelseagate. Most of us have no idea what happened or to what extent it played a part in Stokes’ decision to retire from international cricket, announced bizarrely in the middle of the fourth afternoon of the Trent Bridge Test. All that can be said for sure is that the whole episode demonstrates a considerable degree of ineptitude on behalf of the England and Wales Cricket Board (‘ECB”). The incident occurred on the Monday night, Monday being the scheduled fifth day of the Lord’s Test (which ended on the Sunday). The ECB issued a statement that two players, Stokes and Gus Atkinson, had breached protocol applicable to England players, and would not be available for selection for the second Test at The Oval. Investigation was ongoing. That was it. There were inevitably all sorts of rumours about rugby players, punches being thrown, etc. Media people were aware of the existence of a curfew, introduced after the Ashes (the campaign had been as shambolic off the field as on it). Many people wondered whether a curfew, if reasonable at all in relation to adult sportspeople, would apply after a match had finished. Did it apply, somebody asked, to Jamie Smith, whose wife had just had a baby? Atkinson was quoted as saying he had no knowledge of a curfew. No such excuse could surely be applied to Stokes. Anyway there was no more news for what seemed like weeks. Ultimately the “cricket regulator“ confirmed that no action would be taken against either player and both would be available for selection for the third Test at Trent Bridge.

I was told by a very reliable source about a week after the event that Stokes had not been in the club at the time the “incident” took place. The powers that be must have been aware of this within hours of the incident. The prolonged silence suggests a lack of support for Stokes at the highest level. Another issue was that Brook, England’s white ball captain and Stokes’ deputy, had himself been involved in an incident in a nightclub in Wellington the night before a match back in November 2025. The ECB’s response to this had been to hush it up and fine Brook; he did not miss any cricket. The story only came out weeks later, in the course of the Ashes campaign.

Meanwhile there was an interesting series being played. Circumstances meant that England made five changes at The Oval, and Root, installed as interim captain, found himself leading a team holding three debutants and two other players who had played one Test each. Not that New Zealand were unscathed; Williamson, their greatest player after Sir Richard Hadlee, retired with immediate effect after the Lord’s Test. Henry Nicholls replaced him and made a resourceful century, as did Glenn Philips. But it was the bowlers, Kyle Jamieson, Will O’Rourke, Nathan Smith and, in particular Matt Henry, who won the game for New Zealand.

England were back at full strength at Trent Bridge. New Zealand, however, were without Philips, Henry and Jamieson, and O’Rourke barely bowled in England’s second innings. The toss, it has to be said, was very important but New Zealand made the most of it. Latham and Conway put on 317 for the first wicket – enough to ensure safety one would think – but this was followed by England’s best cricket of the series. Ten New Zealand wickets fell for 121 runs and England finished the second day on 223 for two. But on the crucial third day the middle order was unable to build on the good work done by Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell. England suffered a deficit of 84, and then the courageous and relentless Daryl Mitchell – 100 not out off 241 balls – batted them out of the match. (After 251 balls in their second innings England had scored 189 for six.) By the end New Zealand simply looked a much better side in all departments, and England had lost a home series comprising three or more Tests for the first time since 2012. One thing New Zealand had in common with the Australian side that beat England six months earlier: each side had a brilliant wicketkeeper. Alex Carey and Tom Blundell each played key roles in their team’s win. Surrey’s deputy keeper is not in the same league. He might be one day but not yet.

This was not a fitting end to Stokes’ remarkable career. Of all the authority figures responsible for the current mess, including McCullum, managing director Rob Key, the suits at the ECB, Stokes is the one the team could least afford to lose. There cannot be a single England supporter who did not fervently hope and, well, assume, that Stokes would be leading the side against Australia in 2027. That is why people are so shocked. He has said that he has simply had enough and that may be all there is to it. Certainly the three best England men’s captains of this century – Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss – all found four years to be enough in that job. Stokes’ departure leaves the men’s red ball team in a state of unprecedented disarray. Neither Root nor Brook is an ideal successor, for very different reasons.

Can it really be the end for England’s greatest ever cricketer. If his mate Root were to call him next summer, after England go one down in the Ashes and ask if he feels like a game, how would Stokes respond?

England’s greatest ever cricketer? That’s a topic for another day.