The architects of the Bazball revolution that England aimed to use to summit test cricket have conceded the preparation wasn't quite right for the Ashes. That's not to say the strategy will be shelved.
After arriving on Australian shores with great expectations, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes were intent on imposing the attack-at-all-costs strategy on the contest for the oldest trophy in cricket.
After just one warmup game — an internal
trial against the second-string England lineup — it quickly backfired.
Relying on a pragmatic, conventional approach to the game and long experience of the conditions, Australia retained the Ashes on Sunday with two matches remaining.
“Retrospectively, we lost 3-0 so you would probably say there was room for change there," McCullum told British broadcaster TNT Sport in terms of the preparations. “You put your hand up as a coach and say you might not have got that right.”
After England lost the first two tests by eight wickets, McCullum decided the squad had overdone it in training between the outings in Perth and Brisbane and decided to give the players a break at Noosa, one of Australia's premier beach resort villages.
The rest and relaxation did improve one statistic — in Adelaide England made it to Day 5 of a test for the first time on tour.
McCullum had been building for the Ashes series for years but hasn't yet been able to break the long drought in Australia extending back to 2011.
“We came here with high hopes, high ambitions and lofty goals,” he said. “And we’ve been outplayed across three test matches.”
The Bazball strategy was suspended late in Brisbane when Stokes played a conservative hand in trying to save the day-night test. In the last two days in Adelaide, with some glaring expectations, the batters at least tried to grit it out at the crease rather than hit the ball out of the ground every over.
“The last two days have been our best cricket, and that's because we've just played,” McCullum said. “The previous nine days, we were so caught up and so driven to achieve something and succeed that we've almost got in our own way and we've stymied our talent and our skill and our ability.”
McCullum said there were lessons to be taken from the differences in the contest in the third test.
“There's a lesson not just for the players. There's a lesson for the coach and the coaching staff,” he said. "Preparation, that'll be something that's questioned.
“But we do have a great opportunity in the next two tests. We need to find something out of this tour. We need to play for pride.”
England's bowling attack hasn't so far got its line and length right consistently on the hard, bouncy Australian wickets. Top-order batters have given away their wickets with poor shot selection — often attacking when conditions called for defense. There were too many catches put down, whereas Australia's catching has at times been exceptional.
Under Stokes and McCullum, whose nickname is “Baz,” England played an entertaining brand of cricket that earned the label “Bazball” that turned around the fortunes of England’s test team. But it has divided critics.
McCullum said some players had gone off script in the heat of the moment.
“I did think we were rock hard in our belief of the style we were going to play when we came down here, knowing that we were going to be challenged,” he said, “but I do think we got a little bit stuck.”
Stokes said there'd be no “restricting people’s mindset” in terms of how they believe they can succeed for the team.
“You never want to take away their ability to go out and score their runs in the way they feel is best going to suit them,” the England skipper said. "But then, marrying the skills and the ability that they have with the mentality that it takes to be successful as an international sportsman.
“You put those two together and I know that we’ve got a very, very exciting test team."
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