It’s curtains for Bazball: England sack Brendon McCullum as Test coach

Brendon McCullum (AP Photo) English cricket’s fondness for Brendon McCullum’s acumen as a Test coach ended with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) sacking him on Sunday after four years in the job. However, the ECB retained its services for white ball teams.Sunday’s developments are the culmination of a tumultuous eight months since Ben Stokes hung up his boots in tense circumstances a fortnight ago and months in which England suffered Ashes humiliation in Australia and were beaten 1-2 by New Zealand at home last month. McCullum’s ouster thus officially brings the curtains down on ‘Bazball’ – the manic brand of ultra-aggressive Test cricket pioneered by McCullum and Stokes in 2022.“Obviously I’m disappointed not to continue, but I respect the decision. My focus now is to give the White Ball teams everything I’ve got and help England move on,” McCullum said in a statement issued by the ECB. ECB chief executive Richard Gould said the time was right for a change as they aim to win the Ashes at home next summer.England cricket’s fascination with McCullum can be traced back to 2015, when Eoin Morgan revived the team’s white-ball performances and capped it off with a World Cup triumph in 2019, inspired by McCullum’s enterprising leadership that took New Zealand to the 2015 ODI World Cup final.Bazball dared the cricketing community as a whole, but its greatest success was probably winning over the conservatives of English cricket with action thrillers played over the conventional form of Test cricket. Not only did it pull England’s Test cricket out of a hole under Joe Root, it freed Root himself. Batting with the intention of scoring at close to 4.5-5 runs per reverse and chasing a score of over 350 in the last innings of a Test match, McCullum worked to blur the lines between all three formats of the game.In their first year in charge, strange wins over New Zealand and India on home soil upset the world order, followed by a sacking of Pakistan on their almost concrete pitches. From being proud flag bearers, the England team became bullish and then adamant about the brand of cricket they started playing. Players have often referred to how they are the mercenaries of Test cricket. However, sound results eluded them. In those four years, England failed to win against Australia and India, apart from falling out of contention for the Test World Cup.Cracks in their game began to appear last year when an inexperienced Indian team led by new captain Shubman Gill repeatedly challenged their we-will-chase-anything approach in a series that ended 2-2.It was a cricket brand that flirted with the boom-orburst model. It took the cricketing world by storm when it came out, but consistency has always been rare. During last year’s tour of India, Root and Stokes showed that they are deviating from it by taking a more restrained approach depending on the match situation. The ashes were an implosion and are now likely to be buried.‘Bazball’ announced to the world that there is another way to play Test cricket. If only he understood that this is not the only way.