Longer-form white-ball cricket is paying the price for the T20 takeover – I’m not sure if anything can save it nowA week ago I would have confidently assumed that Ben Stokes would be fully committed to England’s 50-overs side, focusing on the next ODI World Cup as a reigning champion, massively motivated by the prospect of defending his title and able if necessary to take advantage of his position as Test captain to pick and choose his schedule to allow him to remain involved. His retirement took me completely by surprise, and is a huge blow for the team.Apparently the idea struck him during the first ODI against India at the Oval this month, a humiliating loss in which Stokes...
From the ECB to ICC, governing bodies need to realise how the packed schedule makes the 50-over game vulnerableIt feels fitting in some ways that during a week that is hotter than Hades – when alarm bells about our direction of travel should be ringing even louder – Ben Stokes has announced his retirement from one-day international cricket.Yep, the champion all-rounder who powered England to World Cup victory by the barest of margins three summers ago, in front of a packed house at Lord’s and with the UK’s largest cricket audience since the heady 2005 Ashes, has decided the 50-over stuff must make way. If not, his schedule as an elite all-format player would become suffocating. The hope now is...
England’s head coach may not like the term, but the phenomenon is a reflection of the times in which we liveApparently Brendon McCullum hates the term “Bazball”. This is, of course, exactly as it should be. One of the cardinal rules of Bazball, perhaps even its defining motif, is that no established narrative must be allowed to stand unchallenged. Anything you think you know about Bazball is wrong. Everything ever spoken about it has been wrong. Bazball is about making up your own rationale as you go, and so any attempt to pin it down, to define it or even name it, must necessarily be doomed to failure. Continue reading...
England’s new Test captain admits he is replicating the environment Morgan created in the limited-overs gameThere is one aspect of the Test captaincy Ben Stokes hasn’t warmed to in these past few weeks, and that is answering everybody else’s questions about how he does it. “Have you been wondering what all the fuss is about captaincy in Test cricket?” Stokes was asked on Tuesday. “I mean it’s quite annoying having to do this when I’d rather be in the dressing room celebrating with the other lads,” Stokes laughed, only half-joking. Clarity. Positivity. Simplicity. There’s only so many ways he can explain it before you start to think that, as Louis Armstrong said, if you’ve got to ask then you’re never...
Former captain made chasing a big total look straightforward against India as Stokes’s side revel in a new way of thinkingYou won’t win Test matches playing like that. You can’t walk down the wicket and hit Mohammed Shami through midwicket, not in his first over. And you shouldn’t try to reverse-scoop Shardul Thakur for six either, even if you are on 120 at the time. Don’t get caught at mid-off the very next ball after you’ve been dropped there, especially when you’re the captain and your team are 267 runs behind. You ought not to have three slips in for Rishabh Pant when he’s 100 not out and running away with the game. You won’t beat India if you’re 132...