COMMENT
In an period of PR-massaged responses for skilled sporting groups shedding, doubling down is a uncommon one.
While Australian soccer codes are a fan of a blunt “not our day today”, the English response to England’s failure to wrest again the urn this sequence has been to permit its cricketers to precise themselves, and with it, we’ve seen the shortcomings of Bazball’s declared multi-pronged social mission.
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After England’s heartbreaking loss within the first Test at Edgbaston, captain Ben Stokes insisted England have been “not a results-driven team”, and that he was “proud” of the way wherein his workforce had “(taken) the game on from ball one”.
“If that’s not attracting people to the game we love, then I don’t know what will,” Stokes stated after play at Edgbaston.
After a draw at Old Trafford noticed England’s possibilities of successful again the Ashes slip away, Stokes doubled down on this Edgbaston remarks, insisting that there have been “bigger things for (England) than winning the Ashes.”
“As much as I would love to be an Ashes-winning captain, I want this team to be a legacy team. I think regardless of what happens over the next period, these 18 months will always go down in history as one of the most exciting and proactive teams to ever walk out there and represent England,” he instructed the BBC.
Stokes’ feedback have impressed combined reactions, with BBC broadcaster Alison Mitchell studying it as “a way of taking pressure off”.
England Women quick bowling coach Matt Mason echoed Stokes’ sentiments.
“Sport can’t just be about winning and I believe that England are doing far more for the game than the results will determine,” Mason stated.
“Inspiring so many youngsters to take up the game and entertaining so many people like only sport can.
“Spreading happiness and pride when they play.”
The concept {that a} comparatively easy idea of taking part in Test cricket extra aggressively, as if it wasn’t a cornerstone of a few of the nice Test sides of historical past, has such a maintain over the imaginations of schoolchildren throughout the motherland that it’ll encourage a resurgence in participation and eyeballs is as fascinating as it’s misguided.
With the most important boosts to the sport in England coming from key occasions just like the 2019 World Cup win and 2005 Ashes victory, it’s clear that the general public are drawn to successful groups, and having the ability to watch them on free-to-air tv.
This is mirrored in most of the fan responses to Stokes’ remarks.
Ex-journalist Tom Banner insisted that groups weren’t remembered by their type of play, however by their outcomes.
“Does anyone remember the way Ashes-winning teams played 50 years ago? No,” Banner stated.
“The tangible scoreline is how they’re remembered.”
Former monetary journalist Ian Johnson stated “(Stokes) has taken the pressure off by not caring if we win or lose as long as his mates get a game and they enjoy themselves.”
Broadcaster David Lithgow described England’s method as “arrogant lunacy”.
Another fan stated “I really don’t like this Messianic stuff from Stokes. The best way to make his team a ‘legacy team’ would have been to win the Ashes.”
The concept that Bazball has social significance past that of its utility as a cricketing philosophy, significantly when that cricketing philosophy has confirmed restricted over the course of the sequence so far, has been criticised as nicely.
The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew wrote after the Lord’s Test that “England’s men of Bazball are putting fun before winning. Why not try both?”
“The men of Bazball do not trouble themselves with details,” he wrote in an acerbic op-ed.
“Could they have lost their wickets in even more perplexing ways? Could they have thrilled us even more? When cornered, don’t back down. Double down.”
Liew lamented that the “cult of Bazball”, coined by fellow Guardian author Barney Ronay, meant that the English males’s workforce have grow to be immune from criticism.
“There is a school of thought out there that if you appreciated England’s style of cricket when they were winning, then it is unfair to criticise it when it fails to come off,” he stated.
“This is a little bit like arguing that if you have ever enjoyed a meal at a restaurant, you are not entitled to complain when they give you E. coli on your next visit. It’s just the way they cook. They’re taking a whole new approach to gastronomy. And ultimately, when you get down to it, is there really any difference between fine dining and violent diarrhoea?”
Stokes has lengthy solid his workforce within the picture of social saviours for a sport that has lengthy been crippled underneath the burden of unfavourable broadcast preparations, overstuffed schedules and lagging grassroots participation significantly amongst decrease socio-economic stratas and minorities, however within the course of has overlooked what would actually reinvigorate English cricket – Ashes victory on house soil.
Instead, what we see is what’s described by Liew as “a kind of nihilism, a self-protective cowardice masquerading as bravery.”
In wanting past the cricket for perspective, it seems that Stokes’ males probably have overlooked the significance of cricket to the very folks they hope to carry with them on their noble quest, and have subsequently refused to adapt to what’s required of them as Test cricketers.
As Ricky Ponting identified after the occasions of Old Trafford, Stokes’ inflexibility within the face of adversity has price his aspect over the course of the sequence, and now they head to the Oval, the place they’re staring down the barrel of house Ashes defeat for the primary time in two generations.
A legacy certainly.
Source: www.news.com.au
