Should Bazball be called Benball? At the end of another post-match press conference in victory, his cap stained with sweat and a thirst developing, Ben Stokes grimaced, paused for a moment and then decided on the term he would prefer: “Test cricket,” he replied. “English Test cricket.”
This 007-like answer feels unlikely to stick like the one England claim to dislike. That one has even crept into the dressing room itself. Joe Root apparently popped a badge on Brendon McCullum’s kit bag with “Bazball” written on it and the players were waiting to see what happened when their Kiwi head coach eventually discovered it.
Either way, we have the latest slab of evidence that something special is occurring under Stokes and McCullum. In exactly 100 minutes on a scorching fourth day at Bay Oval, England wrapped up a comprehensive 267-run win over New Zealand, Jimmy Anderson’s four-wicket spree sealing their first in the country since 2008 and a 10th in their past 11 Test matches.
A run of five successive defeats in pink-ball Tests was halted – this their first away from home, also – and Stokes claimed another record to go with the six-hitting crown he took from McCullum on the third day: no England captain has chalked up 10 Test wins so quickly, this his 12th match wearing the stripes when you include a one-off stand-in job in 2020.
Statistically, only Australia’s Lindsay Hassett can match this start after inheriting a winning machine from Don Bradman in 1949. Stokes, by contrast, was handed a malfunctioning setup, such that Rob Key, the director of cricket, asked him and McCullum to simply inject a dose of authentic positivity and park any talk about results.
Green shoots of recovery look to have become deep-set roots in little time and ranking the performances that have followed is becoming a fool’s errand. Safe to say this largely one-sided affair against New Zealand – a team seemingly coming down the other side of their own mountain – was a clinical exhibition in how to manipulate the day-night conditions.
English Test cricket now means an ambitious run rate – five-and-a-half an over on day one, five second time around – but, as Stokes said last week, attitude, not numbers, are the point. Entertainment is their big picture aim, evidenced here by Stuart Broad’s madcap first outing as the “Nighthawk” or Ollie Pope’s personal drive-by on Neil Wagner’s bowling figures.
Quickfire scores of 89 and 54 led Harry Brook to be named player of the match for the third time in three Tests and, perhaps fittingly in these parts, the Yorkshireman was a bit sheepish about it. Brook has an innate hunger for runs but in keeping with the selfless approach that Stokes and McCullum preach, he was quick (and correct) to acknowledge a team effort.
After all, Anderson had finessed seven for 54 across the two innings, dousing the last embers, while Ollie Robinson claimed five for 88 himself. Robinson’s crucial 39 on day three, allied with a cool 51 from Ben Foakes, also made the bed in which New Zealand’s night terrors returned, Broad sensing the moment, lasering in to off-stump and wreaking havoc.
Though boosted by the early news of a New Zealander scoring the equaliser for his beloved Nottingham Forest against Manchester City, that four-wicket surge on the third evening left Broad stiff first thing. After New Zealand resumed on a desperate 63 for five chasing 394, his chief contribution instead came 20 minutes in when, for the second time in six months, he was dispensing advice to Anderson on how to bowl a hat-trick ball.
Once Jack Leach profited from a tame shot by Michael Bracewell in the third over of play, Anderson rushed through Scott Kuggeleijn and Tim Southee at the end of the following one – the latter’s limp poke to slip the shot of a captain distracted. But forced to wait six balls, the 40-year-old’s latest attempt was met with a stout forward defensive from Daryl Mitchell amid a commendably defiant – if futile – 57 not out.
It was probably fitting that Anderson knocking over Wagner and Blair Tickner to inflict the coup de grace meant he and Broad ended with four wickets apiece in the innings, this being the match in which their alliance went past Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne’s 1,001 victims as a pairing and in the country where it all began 15 years ago.
This also spoke to the decision by Stokes to recall the pair at the start of his tenure when, like one of his captaincy muses, Eoin Morgan, he could easily have started afresh without them. Instead he doubled down on the senior pair, determined to wring every last wicket out of them.
In turn they have been re-energised by a regime that places enjoyment at the heart of everything, be it the golf resort getaway at the start of this tour or the ever-creative training sessions played out to a backdrop of soca music on the massage therapist Mark Saxby’s playlist.
Bazball, Benball or just English Test cricket, a rhythm has been found under Stokes and McCullum and the beat goes on.
