What’s gone wrong for Bazball?
By Aneesh Agrawal
After England’s drubbing in the land down under, let’s take a look at what went wrong in this Ashes series and what has consistently been going wrong during McCullum’s tenure.
His men came to Australia with hope and confidence that they would finally win the Ashes there for the first time in 15 years. But they couldn’t have been more wrong, losing 4-1 in a series they tried to make competitive.
Recently, they went out of the T20 World Cup after a pretty scratchy tournament.
So, what has gone wrong?
Firstly – where is this coming from?
Well, we have been seeing steadily deteriorating results from England and BazBall. They started off well with high chases and a new look side, winning series against both New Zealand and South Africa, and then the Ashes in England was a competitive series – some say it was one of the greatest of all time. But after the tour of India we started to notice things. They lost 3-1. Next came the Champions Trophy, where not a single game was won, ODI form was at an all time low, and collapses were more frequent than ever.
The Ashes
This was an absolute shambles. At the very least, a few positives came from it, such as Root’s centuries, England’s first test win since 2011-2012 in Australia, and Jacob Bethell being an absolute superstar.
However, they failed to score enough runs and take their chances, there were too many dropped catches and bowling was quite poor overall. A very underwhelming display after much optimism that England would do something.
Tour Match controversy:
England refused to send most of their 1st XI players to play in the Australia tour match, which they eventually won, but still – saying no because ‘they trained too much’ after not much went right in the series suggests that they need to change something.
T20 World Cup 2024 & 2026
Well, alright – they weren’t that bad, getting to the semi-finals. But you can’t be that scratchy as contenders for the championship. Jacob Bethell shined in India, scoring a century in the semi-final andbecoming the 4th player to get hundreds in all formats for England in internationals – the youngest to do so. Will Jacks has also thrived, giving a player of the tournament worthy performance in 2026.
Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy 2025
What a series! Still, it could be argued that England should’ve won. First game – great. Second game – needed to take their chances and Gill’s 250 and 150 meant they were outclassed. Third game – needed to not have a collapse but a flawless performance with the ball. Fourth game – started well! Better batting and great start with the ball. However, dropped catches and missed opportunities meant India had centuries with Gill and KL Rahul, then Jadeja was dropped on 0 and ended up scoring another hundred – which could’ve been the difference as the game ended in a draw. Game five saw us get off to a great start in the chase, but then Brook fell, then Root and then Bethell and suddenly – we needed 20 with 3 wickets, and we lost. Series ended 2-2 but we should’ve done better.
But why are there so many collapses?
McCullum says to his players: ‘take it too far’ – like he himself did as a player, and for him and some other players it was/is prolific. But this means too many batting collapses and too many games lost or involving scratchy performances.
So tell me, what do you think?
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