It is said that your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. If there is any recent example of this, it is the England team and their coach Brendon McCullum’s batting formula in the Test match.
The England team has started a new tradition of playing Test cricket in a batting style under the coaching of Brendon McCullum. This tradition was to breathe life into the somewhat monotonous Test cricket. England had played their stint all over the world with Bazball and tried to make Test cricket exciting by playing in their own Bazball style. They seemed to be playing for the test match, not to be drawn under any circumstances. All the teams in the world were afraid of this new technique from England.
The Bazball Dilemma: England’s Bold Strategy Faces Crucial Test Against India
Bazball had become the strength of England, and when England’s team came to India to play the five-test series, the biggest question was whether England could win this series by playing in the style of Bazball. England’s team made a great start to this series by winning the first Test match and felt that England would strongly compete with the Indian team in this series. It should be remembered that England’s ODI team has also been derailed since the World Cup in India.
Even in ODIs, England’s batsmen used to play similar badgeball and score 400 runs but have been neutral since the tour of India. It seems that after this tour of India, bad days will start in England’s Test cricket, and England will forget Bazball. In the first Test match, Ollie Pope made way for England’s victory by scoring a brilliant 196 runs in the second innings. This innings of the Pope was not at all in the badge style. After this, the confidence of England’s coach and captain increased so much that he started playing Tests in his batting style, and then England suffered a tremendous defeat in the second and third Test matches.
England’s bazball formula has completely failed. England, who talked about chasing a target of 600 runs on the strength of Bazball, were all out for just 122 runs while chasing the target of 557 runs in the third Test. Even after suffering a crushing defeat of 434 runs in the third Test match, England’s captain and coach are still firm on their strategy.
In the third Test match, England lost in the process of scoring runs at a fast pace. When England had scored 207 runs in 35 overs in the first inning and at one time the score was 299/5, after that, England’s innings were reduced to just 20 runs. In the second inning, England adopted a defensive style, and the situation was worse. England’s team was all out, scoring just 122 runs. While England are playing Test cricket under an aggressive strategy under the leadership of England team coach McCullum,.
Indian coach Rahul Draving, despite having the opposite temperament, is working on McCullum’s formula, and his team is trying to put England under pressure with aggressive batting. While the coach of the England team is of an aggressive nature, the coach of the Indian team is of a defensive style. In this series, the battle of ideology is also going on between two coaches of opposite nature, where the Indian team and Yashasvi’s badgeball are still heavy. England’s Bazball, which was once his strength, has become his biggest weakness today. Now it remains to be seen whether, in the coming two Test matches, England will play with the strategy of Bazball or will change the way they play Tests and Bazball will forget.