Even though Australia gave a tough fight to England in the Ashes 2023, batting in a traditional and attritional manner and returning with the Ashes Urn from England after drawing the series 2-2, former Australia batsman Adam Voges believes that the Bazball approach will be adopted by the Australian batters in the upcoming domestic seasons in the Sheffield Shield tournaments.
Since taking over the reins last year, England under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have not lost a single series, and came close to making an unbelievable comeback win in the Ashes but were denied the 3-2 scoreline by rain in Manchester.
England’s Bazball approach was vindicated by their players in the Ashes 2023 series, even winning over the critics and doubters who had questioned whether it would work against the famed Australian bowling attack. It emphatically did.
While England motored on their ride, Pat Cummins’ Australian team played in their conventional method and won the first two series before losing the plot in the rest of the series as England stormed back.
Adam Voges, who played 20 Test matches for Australia and overall 211 first-class games and is now the Western Australia coach, opined that the attacking approach of the England team could seep into Australia’s domestic batters as well.
Voges told the Willow Talk Cricket Podcast: “I think we’d be remiss to think that it’s not going to come into domestic cricket in Australia in some form. It’s just different, isn’t it? It’s not something we’ve seen before.
“We’ve seen England play it for 12 months in the lead-up to the Ashes, so I guess I’m not surprised in the way that they took the game on. To define Bazball, it’s just ultra-positive cricket, isn’t it? It’s looking to put pressure back on the opposition to an extent that we haven’t seen before in the longer form of the game.”
Adam Voges feels that playing in T20 cricket has definitely emboldened the England batters to play in such a manner.
“I think naturally with the evolution of T20 cricket and guys playing more and more of it, I think we’ve seen small changes in the way the longer form has been played, but the England team has just accelerated that in the way they’ve gone about it,” he said.
“You could see there were two really clear and different game styles from both the teams and we ended up with a 2-all draw. That’s not to say that one’s better than the other. Does it then filter down to domestic cricket? There’s every chance and I think it will.”
Adam Voges wants to incorporate Bazball mentality in Australian players
Western Australia won the Sheffield Shield last season. So will Adam Voges ask his players to change their tactics and approach this season?
“In terms of the way we’re going to go about it, we’ll sort of talk about that a little bit closer to the time. In a pre-season phase like we are at the moment, you’re preparing for all forms of the game,” he said.
“And again, it’s a mentality switch as much as anything. It’s that ability to play a bit more high-risk cricket knowing that you’ve got more time but equally fast forwarding and pushing the game forward so that we are seeing more results in four-day cricket.”
