This England-India Test is not Bazball as we know it but it is no less intriguing for it

New York Times

3 days ago

Everything about England's Test cricket in the three dizzying years since Rob Key urged supporters to strap themselves in and enjoy the ride has been about entertainment.
'We don't do draws' was the mantra of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum as soon as managing director of England cricket Key threw them together in 2022 on a mission to redefine the longest form of the game.
Advertisement
But something different has been taking place at Lord's over the past three days. Something that has virtually disappeared under captain Stokes and coach McCullum with their high-octane style of play that quickly became known as Bazball.
An old-fashioned, slow-burning but hotly-contested Test match that could easily end in parity after five long, sun-baked days and more than 30 hours of play at the home of cricket.
Only one Test has resulted in a draw since Stokes and McCullum joined forces on the back of a particularly turgid period during which England had won only one game in 17 under a far more conservative management duo of Joe Root and Chris Silverwood.
And that one draw was only because two days were lost to rain at Old Trafford when England were in a commanding position at a pivotal stage of the last Ashes series against Australia two years ago.
The third Test of England's series against India, deadlocked at 1-1 after two of the five games, may buck that trend.
It has been a throwback, three evenly-matched days so far in which India, remarkably, were dismissed for exactly the same score as England, 387, just 15 minutes before the close of the third day, creating a one-innings match with only two days left to get a positive result.
Now England will have to try to score at their Bazball norm of more than five runs an over, unprecedented in more than 200 previous years of Test cricket before they came along, in their second innings if they are to have enough time to bowl India out and win.
India, meanwhile, will need to dismiss England again by the close of the fourth day to give themselves enough time to force a win on Monday on a last-day pitch.
It is the sort of situation that used to be commonplace before the success of short-form Twenty20 cricket revolutionised the game and threatened to turn Test cricket into an anachronism with no place in a modern, impatient sporting world.
Advertisement
A friend of mine with no interest in a sport that can last five days without a result once said to me, when I was a Test-cricket obsessed teenager many years ago, that 'cricket is a game that is never boring to people like you, it's only ever intriguing'.
The point being that Test cricket devotees, those who are prepared to pay £175 for a day at Lord's, will always find something that interests them even on a slow day on a soporific pitch and with over- rates so slow in this game that fully 32 overs of the scheduled allocation have been lost over the first three days.
And there has been plenty at Lord's to intrigue, fascinate and, yes, entertain Test cricket fans in a game still with as much potential to explode into life over the next two days as it has to peter out into that Bazball rarity of a five-day draw.
Not least on a third day full of the ebbs and flows that seem destined to be a regular feature in this series between two of the powerhouses of the Test game.
First came a relatively calm session of Indian progress interrupted on the stroke of lunch by a brilliant piece of fielding from Stokes that had India dangerman Rishabh Pant run out with a direct hit while trying to hurry his partner KL Rahul to a century.
Then came a spell in which Rahul was dismissed just after reaching three figures and India were seemingly doing their best to throw away their position of strength with some madcap running between the wickets that resulted in four missed run-out chances for England.
Best of all was a hostile and quite magnificent spell of fast bowling from the returning Jofra Archer, who marked his first Test in more than four years with the fastest spell he has produced for England, 11 successive balls over the 90 miles per hour mark, peaking at 94.1.
After tea the Test went back to sleep again as Ravindra Jadeja guided India into an unexpected position of parity with 72 and Stokes put so much into his bowling that a message was sent onto the field by McCullum to tell him not to overdo it and injure himself.
There was time for a bad-tempered finale that could lead to India captain Shubman Gill being fined for his angry reaction to England's attempts to delay the game.
Advertisement
England ensured there would only be time for one over in their second innings with some blatant time wasting that annoyed India and Gill before Zak Crawley — who repeatedly pulled away as the bowler prepared to deliver the third ball of the over — and Ben Duckett reached the safety of the dressing room two runs ahead without second innings loss.
The intrigue now will come on the fourth morning when England have to decide whether they will risk defeat by trying to force the pace with ultra-attacking play and get far enough ahead of India to pressurise them on Monday.
Or whether the grown-up version of Bazball will see England accepting they do not have enough time on another disappointing pitch that is hardly conducive to all-out attack and just try to ensure they do not go to Manchester for the fourth Test on July 21 2-1 down.
Either way there will not be any complaints from Test devotees. This series will never be boring to them, only ever intriguing. Even during a rare quiet, but still absorbing, Test.