England’s team started a bazball pattern when Brendon McCullum joined the team, he brought changes to the team and since then the team has benefitted and is running successfully. England though got a reality check against India in the 5 Test Match series when they lost by 1-4 even after winning the opening Test match.
Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes adopted a new pattern and it shook the cricket fraternity. However Sri Lanka series is not going as per Bazball but they are playing like old school thoughts and following also, so the question arises why aren’t following the Bazball pattern?
Rob Key wants the team to continue with the same pattern
England Cricket team’s managing director Rob Key has advised the team to go with the same pattern which is bazball as they are not following the pattern but still results are positive, England thrashed West Indies by 3-0 and now against Sri Lanka, it’s 1-0 for now. If they are waiting for Ben Stokes to join then it may cost them badly as the next test series is in October against Pakistan. Ben Stokes is injured and Ollie Pope is leading the team in his absence, but the absence of Ben Stokes couldn’t be the reason, if you have planned to start to play with such intent then it should be continued. This approach changing between the series might cost them in the future. Rob Key said:
“It’s not easy to do, but what the great leaders have done is they’ve created an environment that people are desperate to play. Then you have a time like we’ve done, where it’s very relaxed, and you want everyone to go out there and express themselves, and they have a bit of golf, and you have a bit of time off.” “All we ask in return is that you commit, and I don’t care if you’re on a central contract if you’re not committed to what we’re doing. So, if you’re not someone who’s training as hard as you possibly can, putting everything in and committing to the way that we want to do things, then you’re gone,” said Key to Sky Sports Cricket on the sidelines of the second England-Sri Lanka Test at Lord’s.
“You’d love to have four Mark Woods or Jofra Archers, but that’s not the reality. What you want is people that generally can operate at that pace or above…or if you’re not that, you’ve got to have a huge amount of skill. Then you’re looking at variation, and you’re looking at where people are now and where they’re going to be.”
“We pay our players less, especially the top ones than they can get in franchise cricket, but the one thing we can offer is that security. So, you look at someone like New Zealand, because there’d be some of those players in New Zealand, we go are you getting paid much more than a New Zealand cricketer?”
“Some of their best players are now turning down central contracts. That’s not a position we want to be in, so I don’t regret any of it. We can finesse it, of course, and there’s always going to be people that you end up looking at and think ‘Well, they’re getting a lot of money for not doing much’. That’s the bet you have sometimes – contracts like that all around the world happen.”
England wasn’t successful in India when they toured India winning just one game they lost the series by 4-1 so it was their first loss in Asian conditions, they were successful in Pakistan. Can England be successful with baseball in the future or else they may sack the plan?
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