By playing “Bazball”, England’s Test team have rarely been clearer about the style of cricketer they intend to consider for international honours. The message from the top is as striking as the style itself.
Last summer, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum issued rallying cries to domestic players. “It is the manner in which you play, whether that be with bat or ball. It wasn’t going to be about stats,” said Stokes after England’s win over New Zealand at Headingley in June.
In January, Stokes and McCullum joined an England and Wales Cricket Board meeting with county coaches to confirm what they were looking for. While Matt Walker, the Kent coach, says England do not “want to preach”, it is no secret that they are after positive players who score quickly. They dropped Alex Lees in part because they felt the style they wanted did not come naturally to him. Lees resolved to expand his game, as did another previously doughty opener, Haseeb Hameed.
The “blocker” has always been among cricket’s most beloved characters, from Sir Geoffrey Boycott to Chris Tavare to Dom Sibley. But the rise of shorter forms has meant, with strike-rates increasing, there are fewer on the circuit. Is this the end of the road?
Not according to Alec Stewart, director of cricket at Surrey, where Sibley has moved to from Warwickshire this season. Stewart says batting is “always case by case”, and that it would be mad to expect Sibley to play the same way as Ollie Pope.
“We coach our players to take positive, not reckless options, whether in attack or defence,” he said. “A batsman’s currency is runs. It’s how you score those runs. I’ve known Sibley since he was 12 and he’s a fine striker of a cricket ball. If he gets a half-volley, we expect him to put it away for four.
“It’s brilliant what England are doing. I don’t think they’ve ripped up the basics of what batting is all about. When they’ve run down the wicket and whacked four, they have still had a firm base to play those shots.”
‘Bazball has made getting out not a crime’
Stewart believes Bazball will be visible in county cricket this summer, but not necessarily through fiercely attacking batting – although a tweaked bonus-point system does encourage quick scoring, and clips from pre-season matches reveal some horrible hoicks. He hopes the change will be seen in selection.
“In my era, if you had one bad innings you looked over your shoulder, which is not healthy,” he said. “What they have done is create an environment where if you get out doing something it’s not a crime. They have been allowed to play positively because they are backed.”
Kent captain Sam Billings believes Bazball will be seen in the field as much as with the bat. “The greatest impact will be on captaincy,” he says. “The knowledge that no game is lost, and hunting for wickets the whole time, not just settling for top of off.”
Walker agrees with Stewart that the worst thing a county coach could do is “blanket coach”. He points out that pitches at Test level “are a bit more consistently better”. Counties have a dual role: to win competitions, then produce players for England. The first often leads to the second, but veering too far towards the latter could hamper the former.
“It’s very easy to look what’s going on above us and think, ‘We must play like that’,” Walker said. “That’s very dangerous to do. Our role is to help players find a way to be successful for their counties and push their ambition to play for England. But the most dangerous thing is blanket coaching.”
Walker has on his books Ben Compton, the most successful blocker of the 2022 summer. In his first full season in the County Championship, Compton, 29, made 1,193 runs (the second-most in Division One) at an average of 54, and a strike-rate just under 40. No other player in either division who reached even 600 runs scored so slowly.
There are ever fewer players like Compton. Last year, Leicestershire’s Hassan Azad made 579 runs at 29 (a disappointing return for a player who has been consistent in recent years) and a strike-rate of 38 (his career number is 40), and was promptly released.
Compton happy to be Kent’s glue and tortoise
“Ultimately, it’s confirmed some of my fears about the stock of a red-ball specialist in a world that is quickly moving on,” he said in an interview with The Cricketer. He has since worked with the South Asian Cricket Academy and has signed a short-term deal with Northamptonshire after a trial.
While Compton is also building a solid – if slightly sedate – record in 50-over cricket, he is yet to play a T20 game. He is, in many ways, a left-handed version of his cousin Nick. Compton, like every player, is looking to expand his game and does hope to play T20 at some stage.
But he recognises his role, calling himself a “glue” batsman at Kent, who have a host of hares – including his opening partner Zak Crawley – alongside their tortoise. And he is not for changing. “I will just play, trying to score as many runs as I can the way I know how to,” he says. “There will be times I need to be more positive.
“Opening the innings in four-day cricket stays the same, it has stayed the same throughout the history of cricket. You have to see off that first spell of hostile bowling, especially early in the season. You try to give the team a positive start, it’s cliched but true. If you are none or one down at lunch, you take it.
“As the game goes on, we have stroke players who can take the game forward. It’s providing a platform, thinking about it like building a house. You make a strong foundation at the bottom, get the bricks in and go from there.
“The thing I have grown up valuing, and every coach I have worked with has preached, is weight of runs. That’s what I have spent my whole life working towards. That might be old school and traditional. You can’t fault England – they have won 10 of 12. First-class cricket has had a blueprint, over decades, for how successful teams have operated.”
Even as the world embraces Bazball, red-ball cricket will always remain broad enough for the go-slow.
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