England Cricket's Bazball Era Ends as Stokes and McCullum Depart

Farewell, then, to Bazball, the approach defined upon its adoption by the Collins English Dictionary in 2023 as “a style of Test cricket in which the batting side attempts to gain the initiative by playing in a highly aggressive manner”. In time the manner grew less aggressive, the attempts to gain the initiative less evident, and the results less convincing. Brendon McCullum, whose philosophies and nickname had inspired it, was always irritated by the term, describing it when he deigned to address it at all as “silly”, but while this is evidently true, Bazball without any of its defining characteristics was downright mystifying.

Ben Stokes was widely mocked in 2023 when, during a drawn home Ashes series, he said, in a speech given in the privacy of the dressing room but filmed and later released by the England and Wales Cricket Board: “What we have managed to do is we’ve managed to become a sports team that will live forever in the memory of people who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket. What we have done is something a lot bigger than any Ashes trophy … be[ing] the team that everybody will always remember.”

It seemed absurdly hyperbolic, particularly given that his side were 2-1 down with one to play when he said it, but if anything it was just a little late. Those who watched the nascent team in the summer of 2022, the first after McCullum’s arrival and Stokes’s appointment as Test captain – when they chased 277, 299 and 296 to beat New Zealand 3-0, cantered to a target of 378 against India, and came back from 1-0 down to beat South Africa 2-1, a summer in which Jonny Bairstow in 11 innings averaged 75.66 at nearly a run a ball – did come away with indelible memories of wonderment and celebration. England then went to Pakistan and conjured a 3-0 series win in extraordinarily uncompromising conditions, and looked a group operating without limits, uncertain that any even existed for them.

Then came the 2023 Ashes, which despite the achievement involved in coming back from 2-0 down to finish 2-2, and with only Manchester rainfall denying them a third victory, was sufficiently disappointing that a fixation on claiming the urn in Australia grew from it, swiftly becoming overwhelming. McCullum described last winter’s return series as “the biggest of all our lives”, and a humbling, emphatic 4-1 reverse was clearly the end of something. The question was, of what?

It felt like not just a standard, everyday sporting defeat but a comprehensive takedown of England’s team, some of the players selected for it, the individuals involved in choosing and preparing it, and the tactics and ambitions powering their decisions. The ECB promptly launched a review, which as far as the governing body is concerned has gone as badly as they could possibly have feared.

It came to a clear conclusion, despite popular demand for personnel change, that none was required. “Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That’s not the route we’re going to take,” said Richard Gould, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s chief executive. “It may not be the popular route, it may not be the easiest route, but I think it’s the right route.”

Three Tests later the captain has gone, the coach has followed, and those words – and by extension the process that led to them and the person who said them – appear downright absurd. “Positions, particularly in sport, change very quickly,” Gould said on Sunday.

As the summer started with him freshly freed to focus on the future, McCullum welcomed “some clarity around those things” and recommitted to his role, saying he was “keen to finish the job we started” and promising a streamlined, modified, more nuanced approach to Tests. “I’m confident we’ll be a more refined version of the team that we have been,” he said.

“I still want us to play brave and positive cricket. I’d like us to be slightly smarter on occasions. There’s lots to be really proud of over the last four years and there’s lots where you can look back and say we missed opportunities, and if we had nailed those moments then the conversations would be slightly different.”

The first Test against New Zealand, played at Lord’s under slate-grey skies, on a wicket that appeared designed to torture batters, and convincingly won by England, looked like an encouraging start to this regeneration. Emilio Gay was introduced as opener and scored a crucial half-century, while Ollie Robinson made an enormous impact after a recall. But Stokes was already feeling a growing sense of unease within the dressing room and uncertainty about his future in it, he and Gus Atkinson then broke a curfew in their post-match celebrations, and any positivity to emerge from the performance was vaporised in the ensuing conflagration.

In its aftermath Key refused to back Stokes’s captaincy, but said McCullum had “been outstanding in the way that he’s led this side as a coach” and that “this is one of the more successful England Test teams, and it’s not even anywhere near the end of it”. Precisely one month and one day after he said those words, it is the end of it. Of the three people in leadership positions of the men’s Test setup at the start of the summer Key is now the only one who remains, and on Sunday – for what it’s worth – was promised long-term job security by Gould. But if Stokes and now McCullum have become the first individual threads to be teased away from a fraying rope, many will not consider the task to be complete.

McCullum famously rejected the job of white-ball coach in 2022 – though he eventually added it to his portfolio three years later – because “I wasn’t really interested in a cushy kind of gig”. He said: “If you’re prepared to change your life for something it’s got to be something a bit grunty, a bit meaty, and the challenge of trying to bring a team which is rock bottom at the moment, and try to build something long-term that is sustainable and successful, that is more where the challenge lay.” The irony is that having been judged to have failed in his mission to build sustainable long-term success with the Test side, the white-ball job is what he is left with.

McCullum declared on Saturday that in reaching No 1 status in T20s England had “scaled the summit of what we wanted to achieve”, but his focus should now be on the 50-over format, with a World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia scheduled for the autumn of 2027 and the team’s recent ODI performances extremely unconvincing. “It’s fair to say we’re further in front in T20, but there’s still a lot of optimism about where we can take the one-day side,” he said.

The question is whether the head-spinning events of the last few months – and of the last 24 hours – leave him questioning his relationship with his employers, and whether he will ever be able to trust his footing while he navigates the ECB’s ever-shifting sands.