Last September, I found myself in a Dublin nightclub, sharing a bucket of fizz with the captain of the England cricket team. A group of us has headed over to the Emerald Isle to watch a couple of games of the T20I series against Ireland. The second game had been washed out. After a few hours of twiddling our thumbs over a Guinness or four, the chaps and I decided to head into the city, to see if there were any more pubs there. Turns out, there were.
Winding our way into the Temple Bar, we stumbled across some familiar fellow drinkers — half the England team. Having had their game cancelled, they were spending their evening the same way. After a couple of chastening attempts to speak to Jos Buttler and Tom Banton, we slinked towards home, suitably embarrassed.
Stopping for a nightcap in a nondescript bar, we were finishing our pints just as we noticed two of the other punters: Lancashire’s Tom Hartley, who’d taken a superb 7-62 against India, and Jacob Bethell — the bleach-blonde Barbadian all-rounder who, aged 21, had just been made England’s youngest ever captain. Young Bethell was befriended by one of our party bolder than myself. Suitably impressed, we were asked if we would like to accompany the pair to a table they had booked at what was apparently the city’s leading nightclub. Thoughts of sleep evaporated.
We were waved into the VIP zone. The bucket of bubbly arrived, and Bethell held court. I wasn’t on my best form — utterly stumped by stage fright in the presence of two of my heroes, loud music and dancing girls. I nursed the champers. The next thing I remember, my mates and I were stumbling along the street outside at 4 AM, trying to flag down a cab, Bethell and Hartley long gone. Pictures do exist, but England’s PR team can rest easily.
I begin with this extended anecdote for several reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, to show off. Secondly, because I saw partying with the pair as some form of cosmic reward for the previous Critic piece about cricket I wrote, where I talked about just how much cricket has meant to me since becoming a fan in 2019. Thirdly, because with all the ongoing chat about England’s cricketing drinking culture, it helps bring home that these are normal blokes, with whom one can having a smashing time. And finally, because young Bethell’s heroics were one of the few bright spots of yet another otherwise miserable, frustrating and deeply disheartening Ashes series for England.
By his heroics, I don’t just mean his confidence with the Sheilas during England’s much-lamented party break to Noosa but his magnificent 154 in the second innings at Sydney. The boy stood on the burning deck, but his first Test — and first-class — century could not make up for the failures of his teammates. It only left one wondering what could have been, had Ollie Pope not made 171 against Zimbabwe last May, and been kept at Number 3.
But this whole series was a series of big ‘what ifs’. England’s performance suffered from the cricketing equivalent of Murphy’s Law — everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. 17 dropped catches that cost England a collective 560 runs. Malfunctioning Snicko, that punished Jamie Smith and reprieved century-maker Alex Carey. Three fast bowlers going down injured– Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, and Mark Wood, that latter without even taking a wicket — who had been tenderly martialled by the management for years to play in exactly this series. Even the toss of a coin — Ben Stokes lamented having won the first two tosses, since he would have chased, in hindsight. A wonderful thing!
Yet the most frustrating thing about this series is that it will still go down as England’s most successful tour of Australia since 2011. For the first time since Andrew Strauss lifted the urn at the SCG, England won a Test. They scored three centuries — including two Joe Root classics to break his drought Down Under — when in the last three away Ashes series they managed only one a piece. Josh Tongue became the first England bowler this century to take a 5-for in Melbourne, Stokes the first England captain to take one in the Ashes since Bob Willis in 1982.
But while 4-1 looks slightly better than 5-0, it is a paltry return for an England side that could, and should, have won. When England bowled magnificently on the first day at Perth to establish a 40-run lead, they looked like they had the wool over an aging and under-powered Australia. But they chucked that away to collapse in a single session, before Travis Head showed them how it was done and wrapped up the Test inside two days. As much fun as bankrupting Cricket Australia could be, it was a shock from which England never recovered. But they had chances to. Josh Hazlewood was out for the series; Pat Cummins played only one Test; Nathan Lyon only two. Marnus Labuschagne is a shadow of his former self, Steve Smith is creaking, Jacob Weatherald is a hapless journeyman, Usman Khawaja is 900 years old, and Cameron Green is the much-hyped future of Australian cricket that has still failed to arrive. The Aussies were carried this series by the batting of Head and Carey, and the bowling of Mitchell Starc. Even then, the latter’s finest performances came in the first two Tests. Both had been winnable by England, if they had told Harry Brook to calm down and play the situation and bowled a tighter line and length.
It could have been so different. One intra-squad warm-up game after an underwhelming New Zealand white-ball tour was not the right preparation for a series billed as the most important of its participants lives — especially when the Aussies were offering a four-day game against Australia A. When England won in 2010/11, they had played three warm-up games . Why did this side think they knew better? Roll on the dreaded B word; send in the clowns.
Bazball. Its critics are legion, even more so after this series. It is a by-word for arrogance, for braindead batting, moronic media appearances, and a pursuit of a permanent cricketing revolution at the expense of the basics. England won in 2010/11 because Alistair Cook and Jonathan Trott ground Australia into the dirt, not because they tried to whack every second ball for six. Couldn’t anyone in this squad grasp that? Are they so convinced of their own iconoclastic virtue that they really have blocked out all the ‘has-beens’ offering friendly advice?
It is a by-word for arrogance, for braindead batting, moronic media appearances, and a pursuit of a permanent cricketing revolution at the expense of the basics
I don’t think so. They have become high on their own supply and lost any sense of nuance. But it can’t be forgotten that Stokes and Brendon McCullum have transformed England’s cricket for the better with their approach. That first year — when Jonny Bairstow’s centuries, Joe Root’s liberation from the captaincy, and Stokes’s tactical mastery brought victories over New Zealand and South Africa before white-washing Pakistan away — was glorious. It was a worthy transformation from the one victory in 17 Tests that preceded it. But since then, they’ve become lost.
The “meaning of BazBall” has changed. It was originally a liberation — an unshackling of a weary team who had forgotten why they were playing. Initially, they remembered the fundamentals — they could absorb pressure before whipping out the reverse scoops. But it has been reduced to attack, attack, attack. Perhaps the loss of a few older heads in the forms of Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson has robbed Stokes of his control rods. Or perhaps they were all just having too much fun. For all the flashes of brilliance that Zac Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jamie Smith and most importantly Brook displayed, they are wasting their obvious collective talent by playing this dimly.
As has become customary, the ECB has commissioned a review into what went wrong. Should Stokes and McCullum go? On balance, no. They have a year and a half until the next Ashes. Stokes still has the finest win percentage of any England captain not named Mike Brearley, and he believes that McCullum is the only person who can get the best out of him. They deserve the chance to win the Ashes back. But things will have to change around them: a greater willingness to engage with the County Championship and bring in voices from out the Bazbubble, and a humility to admit that as exciting as playing positive cricket can be, it has reached its limits.
But with Bethell pointing the way, the future can be bright. And if he ever finds himself in SW1, I owe him a pint.
