What is Bazball – here is a link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazball
The style is of play is similar to Australian test team who were, and still employing..however without giving it a name.
Here is the fact, so far in the ongoing Ashes series, Australian opener Travis Head has scored most runs(199)with highest striker rate of 108.74, scoring boundary every 6 balls. However he took 22 balls to get off the mark those 4 inns of performance!. It only suggests that batting in test cricket is about spending time in limitless overs per innings. Overall Australian batsmen consumed 109 balls collectively to get off the mark, compared to England who combined took only 68 balls to get off the mark, with Gus Atkinson consuming the most (14 in 4 inns).
Before we look into ogoing series stats, let us look how England fared before Bazball. Brendon McCullum replaced Chris Silverwood as their Test match coach in 2022, and Silverwood had replaced Trevor Bayliss as their coach in 2019. So, let us see how England performed in last few years under these coaches.
Since Bazball took over England’s coaching 118 cricketers represented England in all 3 formats, of which 99(83.89%) were interchangeable!.
If you breakdown separately, then 66.66% Test cricketers played other formats, 92.30% T20I cricketers played other formats, and 90.69% ODI cricketers played other formats.
The concept of bazball is localised county circuit, hence you see rise in boundary rate and big scores. The rise is fast as we can see from the table below.
Has bazball weaken England’s bowling in Test cricket?
England’s overall run rate x strike rate is decent at 3.50 x 55.20 under bazball but in last few series it has risen. Below is series wise stats of the same
Here is overall Bat v Bowl stats
Here is Partnerships for England’s Batsmen , and against England’s bowling overall Bat v Bowl stats
All data updated at end of 2nd Ashes test at Gabba 2025
