“You can’t whack as you do in a T20. Secondly, we now have a concept called Bazball. England is playing fast-paced Test match cricket,” he said on his YouTube channel
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Before the Moneyball idea became a reality in baseball, the use of analytics and statistics to redefine the game had its own set of detractors and proponents. Bazball, a notion of aggressive Test cricket developed by England under head coach Brendon McCullum, is still in its early stages. Although it has seen apparent success in England, with veterans praising it as the future of red-ball cricket, experienced India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has his concerns, giving his honest opinion on the method. Unlike in baseball, circumstances and pitching impact the result of every decision or plan made. Bazball will be tried in every situation, and Ashwin believes “it will falter” in certain situations. Although the method has worked wonderfully in England, the senior Indian cricketer believes that situations tend to determine a team’s approach, and stylesheets take a second seat.
“You can’t whack as you do in a T20. Secondly, we now have a concept called Bazball. England is playing fast-paced Test match cricket,” he said on his YouTube channel. “They want to play a certain style of cricket. But in certain types of wickets, when you try and attack every ball, you will falter. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this approach. Sometimes, on the wicket, conditions need to be respected,” he added. Ashwin further explained his point with the advice of his former coach. “WV Raman used to tell me, “Hello, mister. Don’t challenge the conditions. Will you go to a beach and start swimming as you do in a swimming pool? You can’t, right? Likewise, if you should respect the pitch and play accordingly, the pitch will also respect you.”
Read more: ‘Bazball’: What is the England Test team’s new weapon?
Southee’s opponent, Ben Stokes, has just eclipsed former New Zealand captain and current England head coach Brendon McCullum at the top of the list. During the first Test of the two-match series, Stokes eclipsed McCullum’s total of 107 sixes. Southee is New Zealand’s third most prolific six-hitter in Test cricket, following only former all-rounder Chris Cairns with 87 sixes. Southee became the first New Zealand bowler to reach 700 international wickets on Day 2 of the second Test.
His team, on the other hand, struggled more, falling to 138/7 after England declared 435/8 in their first innings. The hosts were crushed by 267 runs in the first Test against a resurgent England, which had won 10 of their previous 11 matches. Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls ended an otherwise exciting third day of play at Wellington’s Basin Reserve, sauntering to a slow, unbroken 45-run partnership in the final 21.2 overs to help New Zealand reach 202 for 3 in their second innings. They are still 24 runs behind their opponents. At 138 for 7 at the start of the day, New Zealand was on course to finish substantially below par and dreaded being asked to follow on. Tim Southee, in particular, posed a short-term threat to that with his aggressive approach. He stormed to a 49-ball 73 before mistiming a flick to midwicket’s Zak Crawley.
