 "'Bazball' fell flat in India because England batters failed to click as a unit")
England had arrived in India in January full of hope and energy after an intense training camp in Abu Dhabi. The Ben Stokes-led and Brendon McCullum coached side, after all, had an aura about them thanks to their tearaway success in the ‘Bazball’ Era, during which they did not lose a single series since the summer of 2022 and even whitewashed teams such as Pakistan 3-0 in their own backyard.
England, therefore, were not in the wrong for assuming they could have pulled off something that has been achieved only thrice in this millennium — beating India in a Test series in India, the last of which was orchestrated by the Alastair Cook-led English side more than a decade ago.
More than a month and five Tests later, ‘Bazball’ has got a harsh reality check in the form of a 1-4 series defeat following their innings and 64-run thrashing at the hands of Rohit Sharma and Co inside three days in Dharamsala. This despite pulling off a stunning 28-run victory in the series-opener in Hyderabad in late January, finishing on the winning side even after they had conceded a 190-run first innings lead.
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India would bounce back with a 106-run victory in the second Test in Visakhapatnam before registering an even more dominant 434-run win in the third Test in Rajkot. England, to their credit, fought back admirably in Ranchi where they not only posted 353 in the first innings thanks to a gritty century from Joe Root, but had India staring at a certain defeat at 177/7 in reply. Had it not been for Dhruv Jurel’s brilliance as well as the Indian spin trio’s collective might, England could very well have arrived at the foothills of the Dhauladhar range with the series level.
The Englishmen however, appear to have saved their very worst for the last and exhibited signs of the ‘departure lounge syndrome’ — where a visiting team that is already down and out after surrendering the series shows signs of wrapping things up quickly and flying back home rather than stay back and fight for pride.
Impact Shorts
View AllNot only did the series finale finish inside three days, with the last wicket of England’s second innings falling shortly minutes before tea was to be officially called on Day 3, England were also hardly in the contest save for fighting half-centuries from Zak Crawley and Joe Root in the first and second innings respectively.
Bazball fails to keep England afloat
To their credit, England did not abandon their slam-bang approach that is at the heart of their ‘Bazball’ ideology — taking the attack to the opposition bowlers even in the face of adversity, primarily to throw their plans into a state of disarray and put them under pressure. The English batters had primarily focused on sweeps and reverse-sweeps in order to negate the threat of the world-class Indian spin contingent, which was a defining aspect of Ollie Pope’s magnificent 196 in Hyderabad as well as Ben Duckett’s whirlwind 153 in Rajkot.
Then there were the likes of Joe Root who just couldn’t adopt to the slam-bang approach and had perished rather comically while trying to reverse-paddle the likes of Jasprit Bumrah. Root however, rediscovered his touch after going back to the classical Test batting approach that had brought him so much success for a decade, collecting an unbeaten 122 and 84 in Ranchi and Dharamsala respectively.
However, there is only so much that an ultra-aggressive approach can do if the team fails to fire as a collective unit. Yes, the English batters did put the Indian bowlers under pressure from time to time, and had even left leading spinners such as Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja searching for answers at one point in the series.
England, however, rarely had the kind of collective batting performance that India had managed to produce in Rajkot as well as in Dharamsala, with their misfiring middle-order primarily to blame for the team frequently collapsing from a position of strength throughout the series.
Going back to the very beginning of the series, England had managed to get close to the 250-mark thanks primarily to an excellent knock of 70 from captain Stokes — the only time in the five Tests that he managed to produce an innings of note. As for the second essay, the visitors appeared headed towards a defeat inside three days, getting reduced to 163/5 at one point after conceding a first innings lead of 190 before Pope produced the knock of a lifetime to turn things around in style. Even then, Pope’s 196 in the second innings was England’s only 50-plus score.
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It was a similar story in Rajkot where Duckett dished out a 151-ball 153 but Stokes (41) was the only other batter to cross 40. And had it not been for Mark Wood’s explosive 33 off 15 deliveries during England’s chase of the improbable 557-run target, the visitors would have struggled to even cross 100 instead of finishing with a score of 122 that they were eventually bowled out for.
Even in Ranchi, England were reduced to 112/5 before Ben Foakes (47) and Ollie Robinson (58) gave Root the support he needed to bring up his century and guide England past 350. And the less said about their second innings performance, the better.
Crawley was England’s standout performer with the bat, as well as the only one from the visiting team to go past the 400-mark in the series, finishing with 407 runs with four half-centuries at an average of 40.7. But the attacking opener will be disappointed by the fact that he failed to convert all those starts into daddy hundreds, getting dismissed in the 70s thrice in this series.
Like Crawley, Bairstow too got off to promising starts, but while the former went past the fifty-run mark more often than not, the Yorkshireman could only manage a highest score of 39. He did have the second-best strike rate (82.06) in this series after Duckett (85.75) among batters with at least 50 runs in this series, looking especially threatening with his slog-sweeps towards the midwicket and cow corner, but that counted for little in the end and didn’t cause much damage to the Indian cause the way he would have liked to.
Runs missing from English batters
Root (320) and Pope (315) finished with more than 300 runs each, the latter scoring more than half of his runs this series in one outing alone. Root, meanwhile, had been going through a horror run in this series — collecting just 77 runs in the first three Tests before roaring back to form and collecting 243 in the last two.
The biggest disappointment in this series, however, would have to be the English captain, with Stokes ending the tour with just 199 runs to his name at a meagre average of 19.9, failing to cross fifty even once after his 70 in England’s very first innings of the tour and getting dismissed for a single-digit score in each of his last four outings.
The batter responsible for one of the most breathtaking knocks witnessed in this millennium, from his 258 in Cape Town to an unbeaten 135 in Headingley was made to appear clueless against the diverse Indian attack, even pedestrian at times.
Speaking after the conclusion of the Dharamsala Test, Stokes acknowledged the risk that their ultra-aggressive approach entailed while summarising England’s humbling experience in India.
“Since the first Test match, we’re man enough to say we’ve been outplayed,” Stokes said during the post-match presentation.
“There have been small moments when we’ve not been able to wrestle momentum back. It’s about trying to understand those moments and be a bit more relentless.
“When India get on top, men around the bat, the quality of bowlers like Ashwin, Jadeja, Kuldeep… you’ve got to find ways of pushing men out and then comes with risk. It can be your downfall but if the intent is there, you hold your hands up,” Stokes added.
Read | ‘India youngsters responded pretty well, credit for series win goes to entire team’: Rohit
How England will respond
The 4-1 series defeat doesn’t necessarily mean England will suddenly abandon their ideology, or take any extreme measures. For all they know, these very batters might just regain their form when the Zimbabweans, West Indians and Sri Lankans come visiting later this year during the English home summer, and ‘Bazball’ might just get back on its feet after suffering a knockout punch in India.
If there’s a lesson to be learnt from this tour, however, it is that ‘Bazball’ cannot rely on one or two individual brilliant performances alone. Especially when touring a country where even legendary teams led by the likes of Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting have been vanquished.
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