Bazball is a word thrown around pretty frequently these days and somehow whenever Test cricket is murmured under heavy breaths, this word has been doing all the rounds that would not have been thought even a year back. What is Bazball? Is there some technicality that has just arrived under the façade of a different name that trends all over cricket?
Well actually, England did on the first day of the first Test match, that is Bazball. It is just another name of an aggressive approach resorted to by the English batters. They do not care if they are losing wickets or they are falling short of the finish line. For them what matters is that they continue to deliver the payload.
So what exactly is Bazball?
It is a term coined in honour of the aggression that was knitted together by the iconic Brendon McCullum who loved going hard at the bowlers. This is exactly the mindset that is being inculcated by the Englishmen in their Test cricketing fabric. If you have a closer look at the English scorecard at the end of day one, you would know what are we talking about.
Zak Crawley started the day with an exquisite cover drive and that too on the first ball of the innings. That is Bazball. He hammered 61 off 73, smashing seven fours. That is Bazball. Joe Root, who would usually take his time, get in the groove and play his shots nice and slow, would also go onto score 118 from 152 balls, smacking seven fours and four sixes. That is Bazball.
Jonny Bairstow was scoring at a strike rate of 100 playing a Test match and he smashed a blistering 78. That is Bazball.
Almost all the English batters were scoring as if they were playing an ODI just in the Royal whites. It is just aggression that would leave you with a very bitter taste in your mouth if you are playing against England and unless you know what you are stepping into, you would slide and you would slide into madness. That is Bazball, a technique that would obliterate you over and over again, a technique that has already conquered South Africa, New Zealand and India and probably Australia is next on the charts.
