There were few things as heartbreaking growing up than a last-minute defeat in the playground. Tears would be shed and a blow-by-blow account conducted at home to Mum and Dad over the dinner table about the injustice that had occurred at lunch.
“Oh, well,” would come the ever-infuriating reply, before adding: “It’s only a game.”
An unsatisfying response that would only ever serve to prove that no one else got it. It meant so much more than that.
But this England team seems to have realised something sooner than the rest of us, that Mum was right all along, and it really is just a game.
“There’s no shame in losing,” said England coach Paul Collingwood at the close, “when Baz and Ben took over, the number one priority was we need to keep all of Test cricket. We need to make it entertaining.
“It’s exciting to experience and if the bi-product means that we win then so be it but if we lose and it’s been exciting then again, it’s still a win for Test cricket.”
Were any two other nations playing this fixture in Rawalpindi a draw would’ve been assured. A bland surface offering nothing but back pain for bowlers and runs for batters, it required a side willing to lose in order for someone to be able to win. A role that England have pro-actively volunteered for.
“It feels like they’re being pioneers already,” continued Collingwood, “in how they’re going about playing the game. The way that we’re batting, the way we’re doing things differently from how we’ve always done and how the game [itself] has always been played.”
In setting Pakistan 343 for victory, England offered a total that Pakistan successfully chased only two matches ago against Sri Lanka. England haven’t so much dangled a carrot but shoved it in the horse's mouth, desperate for other teams to join them in their fun and games.
It is a shift in mentality that will take years to adjust to even if it stands the test of time. Many will share the sentiment of disliking losing more than they enjoy winning and Brendon and Ben’s attempts to flip that notion will not be without its challenges. Noticeably, when the high-risk, high-reward approach falls flat for a handful of games in a row. They have so far won six out of seven under McCullum, but it is far from unlikely that they may lose six of the next seven, end up with a neutral record and have the calls for the nonsense to end ringing in their ears.
“Sometimes I think it’s crazy,” expressed Collingwood of this new era of cricket, “crazy in a good way, but sometimes I’ll be sitting in the dressing room and I’ll know full well that I’d have never come up with these ideas that Ben and Baz come up with, but it’s great to see and when it comes off its genius and when it doesn’t then so be it.”
It is an attitude that is looking after the macro and the micro of cricket. First and foremost it looks to contribute to a global game where the Test game is declared to be on its deathbed every five minutes and secondly on an individual level where players, who faced with a relentless and emotionally draining schedule, are lifted of some of the responsibility attached to a “whatever you do, don’t lose” mentality.
“What you want as a coach is these guys to go from training and in the nets and play to as close to a 100% of their ability as they possibly can,” explained Collingwood. “I know in my day we were always around about 50-60% of our ability, we were always too worried about making mistakes, what the consequences are, what are you guys going to say, how am I going to ring the wife and what’s she going to say?
“All of these things are the consequences and the more you can strip that away and just really bring the fun element back into it I think is the key.”
It is a change that is working. Joe Root, a veteran of over 300 international games, has said plainly it is the most fun he has ever had playing for England. Whilst newbies to the group like Ben Duckett and Will Jacks rave about the environment they have been brought into. Able to enjoy the game once more in the same way that made them fall in love with it in the first place.
“It’s amazing going into that dressing room now and seeing the positivity and how relaxed and how enjoyable it is to actually play cricket and represent your country,” concluded Collingwood.
“Almost strip away all the consequences, all the pressure and understanding the reasons why we play the game.
“Just having that clarity of taking it back to when you played as a kid and were playing in the back street or the backyard, and going out there, and having fun.”
It is, after all, only a game.
