You Can Go Your Own Way
England haven't saved Test cricket, but they've given it a major shot in the arm, and had some fun along the way.
Whether the result of this Ashes series for England was a win, a loss or a draw depends on the metric against which you measure it.
The record books will show a series drawn. Six weeks summarised in six words. “Series tied, Australia retain The Ashes." The fact the famous urn will return down under for another 18 months dictates that for the harshest of critics, this series is ultimately a defeat for England, an objective unfulfilled, England tried and failed to win the series. But that assessment would be both unfair and misleading, and if we look beyond the literal, there is a strong argument to be made that we have witnessed a major victory.
The Ashes of 2023 has seen interest in a Test series unmatched since the summer of 2005, a year when all 5 Tests were free to air on Channel 4, the iPhone didn’t exist beyond a Silicon Valley drawing board, and T20 cricket was in its infancy. Everything has changed since then, with the remarkable exception of Jimmy Anderson’s presence within the England setup.
The Ashes now competes with a Sky Sports induced paywall, limitless social media pumped directly into the hands & eyes of millions, and even more importantly, Test cricket now competes with cricket itself. Players and fans alike not only have to commit to the sport, but to this particular flavour. Test match cricket is a long read in a TikTok world, and until recently, in the ongoing fight for eyeballs, the England men’s Test team were bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Enter Bazball. A social experiment performed before our very eyes. What happens when you take something steeped in tradition and behavioural norms, cultivated and preserved for over a century, and just decide to do things a bit differently, simply because you can?
The approach from Stokes and McCullum is often described as radical and revolutionary, but is essentially the product of some extremely talented sportsmen deciding the way they’ve been told to do it by others, might not always be the best way.
Like the child who asks ‘why?’ and stops the parent dead in their tracks because they’ve never thought about it before. History tells us that you can’t declare on Day One of The Ashes, you can’t expect to average 5 an over in Test cricket, and you certainly can’t have your tasty slog sweeps until you’ve finished all your forward defensives. That’s the accepted wisdom, just ask Wisden.
Well they can, because they just did, and provided us with 25 days of cricket that will live long in the memory. Whether it was Ben Stokes launching his exhilarating counter offensive at Lords, Joe Root’s audacious ramp shots, the 99 not out from a possessed Jonny Bairstow at Old Trafford, or Zack Crawley’s majestic coming of age innings of 189, England’s batters have stuck to their swashbuckling principles throughout. When you combine batting like this with some 96mph rockets from Mark Wood, consistent brilliance from Chris Woakes, and a 22 wicket haul and Hollywood ending from the retiring Stuart Broad, it’s clear why this England side have made Test cricket must see TV across the summer.
The heightened awareness also meant that despite all the world class cricket on show, the series reached a high watermark in terms of piquing the national interest with the controversial stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lords. Whilst being subjective in terms of its sporting merit, the dismissal was objectively entertaining in the reaction it went on to generate. We had TV debates, radio phone-ins, even the Prime Minister took time out from not fixing the country to opine that it simply wasn’t cricket. And in a way he was right, this wasn’t cricket, or at least what we’ve come to expect from it. When the members of the Lords Long Room are behaving like Galatasaray Ultras, you know the times, they are a changing. If only we’d known that to make cricket appealing to the masses, all we had to do was increase the net run rate by a couple of runs per over, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time on The Hundred.
Yet alongside the plaudits, a frustration amongst some has been the dogmatic approach of England to this new enlightened way of playing. Amongst the beauty and bravery we’ve had the reckless and the rueful. The wickets thrown away in the first innings at Lords, and a catalogue of dropped catches throughout the series are two examples of an approach that is brilliant and imperfect in equal measure. Mistakes are all part of sport, but a seeming unwillingness to even contemplate the idea that any decision, any shot, any ball, may have been the wrong one presents an image of a side so wedded to their beliefs that reflection has become a dirty word. You can’t question this, it’s just what we do (man).
When interviewed after the Old Trafford washout which saw the prospect of all out series victory removed from England, you could be forgiven for thinking Stokes was being advised by the same media strategist as Clarence House. The long forecasted rain was simply unfortunate, and all previous decisions that got us to this point were not to be elaborated upon, worse still, questioned with hindsight. In the world of Bazball, never complain, never explain.
For all the rights and wrongs of England, it’s important we don’t gloss over the role Australia have played in all of this either. There is a danger that in an eagerness to praise the bold approach of England, we diminish the achievement of an Australian side who have met this challenge head on. Across the entire series they have been at least equal to, often better than England, away from home, without their premier spin bowler for the majority of the series. And although they haven’t so much as met fire with fire, they have met fire with a clinical and well rehearsed plan for putting the fire out. They came to claim The Ashes, and that’s exactly what they have done.
It may not always be the most important thing, but in elite sport, winning matters. The desire to win is what creates the jeopardy and tension which keeps us coming back for more. To go fully down the route of advocating victory in the series was irrelevant for England because it was all about the friends they made along the way does a disservice to the players. The disappointment of not winning back the urn will be keenly felt by everyone inside the England camp, and for the Australians, the post series beers shared inside their dressing room will still taste pretty sweet despite having not won a match since the second Test.
But two things can be true at once, winning can have genuine and meaningful importance, whilst not being the single determining factor in measuring success. As was eloquently pointed out by NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo last month, Michael Jordan had 15 seasons in the NBA, winning 6 championships, and if that means Jordan had 9 years of failure, then the last person to leave The Oval may as well turn out the lights. And speaking of the lights being turned off, the stark reality is that despite this exhilarating summer, it’s difficult to see how England’s dynamic approach can become significantly more than a boisterous rage against the dying of the light.
In a story arc that mimics Jimmy Anderson’s own career, Test matches like those we've just witnessed are still remarkable to watch when in full flow and showcasing the very best the game has to offer. But like watching Anderson bowl this series, you can’t fully escape that nagging feeling that change is on the horizon. Whether it be the IPL, The Big Bash or the newly launched Major League Cricket, the cricketing landscape is moving quickly, and it’s still a significant uphill task for a format which currently only has a tiny handful of international teams investing genuine time and resources into it, to thrive outside the bubble of India, England and Australia.
But that is for another day. This series has provided everything we could have wished for and more. So for now let us live in the moment, and reflect on the fact that in the summer of 2023, people were excitedly talking about Test match cricket, and for England and Stokes, that may be even more of an achievement than winning a 5 match series against the world’s number one ranked side.
Great article. Sharp, witty, thoughtful writing.