The Bazball cult reaches its crescendo in one madcap session as Smith and Brook went into trance mode and reintroduced a third result.
The session when the Bazball cult came alive.
When Jeetan Patel talks about Bazball, it never sounds more like a cult. At the press conference at the end of the second day, the press pack almost expected him to remark, “we have got them where we wanted.” India scored 587 and England scored 77 for three.
Cults typically have the dilemma of providing light and comfort to those who are in need of something to cling to, but their experiments, so to speak, aren’t supported by independent evidence. For believers to reach nirvana, they require specific, erm, circumstances.
Flat fields and the newly soft Duke’s balls are Bazball’s conditions. Not simply flat surfaces, but ones that don’t break down and produce steadily rising averages across Test matches in England’s Bazball era. Since the hard Duke’s balls usually leave indentations on saturated pitches, causing irregular bounce throughout a Test, there is no moisture left.
The ultimate test of this crazy optimism, however, came when England fell 503 behind India at 84 for 5, with Mohammed Siraj scoring a hat-trick in the second over of the day. Although England has experienced setbacks in this era, they have never fallen so far behind at the start of a game. Jamie Smith, a “made” wicketkeeper, enters the game to face the hat-trick ball before more experienced ones who were chosen for Bazballing purposes. And through mid-off, he smacks it for four.
When it appeared England was out of the game, Smith and Harry Brook brought the third result back in a spectacular attack on India throughout the remainder of the session.
They gave off the impression of being in a trance. According to Brook, they didn’t talk about any plans or match state. All they did was watch and hit the ball. Smith went at a strike rate of bazillions with a control percentage of 90+, whereas Brook may have bungled his lines a bit.
India contributed. The drums were pounded. They were prepared to purchase a wicket because the ball had become soft. The plot involved the sacrifice of Prasidh Krishna. He drew a rare miss from Smith after bowling two good overs of line and length, drawing an edge that soared through the thinly populated slips, and then suddenly began hammering the ball down the middle of the pitch.
What do you do with opponents who keep coming at you and don’t appear to care about the match circumstances or the outcome? India had so many runs in the bag that they didn’t need to bowl to maintain control. The foundation of batting is that fear of getting out, which is why risk management is required. Regardless of the pitch, Bazball is dispelling that anxiety.
However, India made the decision to take advantage of that run bank and hunt with just the second new ball at the lunch break. India responded just as brilliantly with the second new ball after a slower session caused by ODI fields and probably exhausted batters, but that one moment of irrational belief did leave them unnerved.
That the new ball caused enough danger to bring some equilibrium to those outside the cult was fortuitous. However, the believers still don’t seem to care. And there’s still a second innings to go.