The least Bazballish player ultimately saved this summer of high-stakes jeopardy for the Stokes-McCullum experimentAnd so as England’s cricketers looked back across their trek through the endless Bazball summer, as they peered more closely at their moments of most profound struggle, adversity, and almost chucking it away like a bunch of Jägerbomb-sodden teenagers, they noticed that where there were previously 22 footprints in the sand, in those moments of greatest tension there was only one. Yes, England cricketers, the Spirit Of Cricket answered. That was when Chris Woakes carried you.Well, that was unexpected. Of all the turns and twists, the throbbing narratives available to this epic Ashes series, to England’s moreish, thrilling, occasionally infuriating attempts to reinvent how this austere...
After spending the third day sleepwalking round the Oval, Australia grew more decisive before the rain stopped playIt should have been too much. Five Ashes contests, six Test matches, just over seven weeks, right at the tail end of all, a visiting team that was done. The Australians had spent the third day groping around the field like sleepwalkers headed to the fridge who ended up in the laundry closet, and early the next were set 384 to win. England had enjoyed the emotional burnish of Stuart Broad’s retirement announcement, having been given the entire third evening and fourth morning to polish the idol.Australia played ball, lining up in a guard of honour as he came down the steps to...
England’s success or failure on day five at the Oval serves as a referendum on the wider story of the Ashes summerThere was once a dream that was Bazball. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish. And one way or another, it was always coming down to this.By the time play was abandoned in the afternoon mulch, with Australia on 135-0 in their fourth‑innings chase, the sense of creeping jeopardy could hardly have been greater. Roll on Monday, final staging point in this five‑Test ride. One day left to save the English Ashes summer; and to save a few other things too. Continue reading...
England quick wanted one last shot at Australia so he created a new delivery and got inside David Warner’s head for all timeStuart Broad came into this Ashes armed with 582 Test wickets, a burning desire to stick it to the Australians one last time, just enough bluster to disguise the fact that these days he bowls an 80mph bouncer, and a bandana. You mustn’t forget the bandana. It was a lockdown thing. Other people came out of those months with a breadmaker and a repertoire of sourdough-loaf recipes, a newfound appreciation for their children’s primary school teachers, or any one of a number of debilitating social complexes, but Broad emerged from them with the inspiration for his latest character,...
Tourists pay dearly for belief that if they bowled their normal stuff, a normal England innings would followAs the 2023 Ashes moved to within two days of its scheduled close, there was no escaping the reality for Australia that it was happening again. That feeling of being slapped around the chops, too dazed to get the thread of what to do next. England with the bat running the game in their own way, setting the terms that Australia had to respond to. This, above all, has been the idea behind Bazball: not all about hitting sixes or bowling bouncers, but making opponents react rather than act.It was there on the first day of the series at Edgbaston, when England made...