England’s emphatic victory over South Africa, in under two days and a session at the Oval, completed one of the more thrilling summers of Test cricket for the home side.
Their exciting brand of cricket was also successful. Under the new stewardship of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, England won six of their seven Tests, beating New Zealand, India and South Africa in the process.
That is about as outstanding as it gets save for beating the Aussies, which remains the benchmark by which cricket here is measured.
Most compelling narratives require a hint of mystery but this one possessed none, just the incredulity, for most of us, of how England kept pulling rabbits out of the hat with their relentless front-foot approach. Even when defeat looked likely they somehow conjured a win; from the bat of Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root in the first half of the summer and then by more communal means later on.
England’s formula, if that is what you can call their ultra-aggressive style of cricket, is to take the draw out of the equation. Listening to McCullum, Stokes and some of the other players talking after the last Test, they removed every distraction – the scoreboard, the media, the draw.
Instead, they focused on playing exciting, aggressive, all-or-nothing cricket with the wider goal of making Tests more exciting and the more immediate objective of making it fun for players and spectators.
It has worked so far, especially in transforming a side for whom losing, rather than winning, had become second nature following a trot of one win from 17 Tests. But as already mentioned, Australia are English cricket’s main metric, and totals of 149, 165 and 158, three of the five made against South Africa, will not win the Ashes. Which suggests Bazball will need to evolve to become smarter if the urn is to be returned next summer.
Before that, the team and their new zeal will be confronted by a Pakistan side eager to get England back on home soil following a 17-year hiatus in the wake of the terrorist attack on Sri Lanka there in 2009.
It will be a fascinating contest with history suggesting the draw as a default result, England having won just two and lost four of the 24 Tests played on Pakistan soil since the first in 1961. Yet, after this summer of thrills, and positive results, who can doubt this England side in overcoming the weight of history?
It will be fascinating to see how England approach the task. Neither McCullum nor Stokes have experienced Tests in Pakistan, though both have played against them on neutral territory in the United Arab Emirates (Pakistan’s home during the security crisis). You would imagine the batsmen will need to cope with wily spinners and reverse-swinging fast bowlers, one of them, Shaheen Shah Afridi, heir to the great Wasim Akram.
The challenge for England’s bowlers, meanwhile, will be to take 20 wickets, a goal which has largely proved intractable, hence all those draws. James Anderson and Stuart Broad are now the two most successful pace bowlers in Test history, with 667 and 566 wickets respectively, though neither has played in Pakistan, a place that will challenge all their ingenuity and nous.
Given it is McCullum’s playing philosophy which now informs England’s, it is worth looking at his away record as a batsman against India and Pakistan, to see how it fared in conditions likely to be found this winter.
In five Tests against India, he averaged 50.77 over ten innings though a double hundred rather distorted the data as eight of his other nine knocks were under 50. It is a similar story against Pakistan, where he averaged an even more impressive 69.4 across three Tests.
Again a double hundred dominated with the remaining four innings all below 50. Only one of the eight matches was won, the lone success after his 225 against Pakistan.
England enjoyed a series victory in Pakistan 22 years ago. That was achieved by tough, attritional cricket under Nasser Hussain. This England team will not countenance playing like that, however pragmatic. Success to them is not counted in the win column but in not being dull, the best way, as they see it, to keeping Test cricket relevant.
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