Newshub18 :New’ England’s first shock: Steady Stokes-McCollum
I just flew 5,500 miles from Los Angeles to go to the fourth day of the Test at Lord’s.
This was the first part of the tweet by television personality Piers Morgan. But with a footnote, Morgan wrote, “Maybe there will be no such thing as a fourth day.” A little later, he retweeted the previous tweet and wrote, “Update – I’m not going to Lord’s tomorrow.”
A new England emerged promising to change Test cricket at Lord’s last June. In an aggressive display lacking in Test batting, Joe Roota ‘managed’ to pay the visitors back by winning the team early.
The Stokes-McCallum side appeared in the same form in the next two Tests in that series against New Zealand at Trent Bridge and Headingley. It was the same in the previous year’s outstanding Test match against India at Edgbaston. At Trent Bridge and Edgbaston, they gave the opportunity to see the fifth day of ‘entertainment’ free of charge.When England came down to play the test at Lord’s again, it all changed dramatically! England lost within three days, again by an innings, as South Africa flew at the pace. What was not heard of ‘buzzball’? Where, where is that ‘buzzball’?
Kiwis may have been surprised by England’s style of play, India under the Ankora captain could not handle the pressure. However, Dean Elgar’s South Africa at Lord’s did not give England a chance to rise. According to Cricviz data, since ball-by-ball data was introduced in 2006, no pace attack has bowled so fast (86 mph on average) on England’s soil. Kagiso Rabada, Enrich Norcia’s pace along with Elgar’s great captaincy, changes in the batting order, blowing away the pressure – South Africa put England’s ‘buzzball’ philosophy in front of a ‘reality check’.
The usefulness of that philosophy was questioned by Elgar before the start of the series. Stokes did not want to discuss it. Even after the match, he did not want to go like that. Just reminded, losing a match doesn’t matter. He and his team have full confidence in their new philosophy.After all, losing a match is not the end. But rates also have their own style. Which made the big difference of this Test with the previous four Tests that flew the flag of ‘buzzball’ even bigger.
England batted later in those four Tests. Their batsmen did not have to take the challenge of the morning of the first day of the Test. But what it took at Lord’s was an abject failure. The anger of which England could not overcome. Collapsed in the second innings in such a way that even Dean Elgar was surprised. The inevitable question therefore arises—is it really possible to achieve consistent success in Test cricket with such an aggressive batting philosophy?
Stokes, however, has no such doubts. His post-mortem of defeat was, ‘Whatever kind of cricket you want to play, if you can’t play anything close to it, you’re bound to lose.’ Whatever I have done to South Africa in the last three days in terms of batting and bowling, they have responded. Credit must be given to them. We weren’t in rhythm and that’s fine from our side. Not that I will start throwing arms and legs like children now.’
The England captain says to forget what the result of the match was in the end, ‘I am really trying to establish it, so that the team does not think too much about the result of the match. Play well or badly—results are determined by that.’
Losing doesn’t mean anything, Stokes reminded, ‘It’s always disappointing to lose a match. Looking back, we didn’t really play to our potential. The credit actually belongs to South Africa. They ignored us for these three days. Well, it has to be accepted. But we lost only one match. With two more matches left, the aim now is to win the series 2-1.
What he said next was to reiterate his confidence in his philosophy, ‘We have a certain style of play. We know that if we can implement them, we will be hard to beat. But we can’t play great every day. This week I was a little lazy. But we will not remember these things. I want to forget everything and go to Manchester.
Some of the England team played in The Hundred after their win over India last month. But some were completely out of the game. It has also been questioned whether this break has affected England’s rhythm or not. To which Stokes said, ‘Playing different versions for different teams for five weeks is certainly not ideal. But we have been playing professional cricket for a long time. We know how to play cricket. Looking at that, we don’t want to build a culture of excuses. We just look at it this way – South Africa played better than us.’
Stokes’ style of play is called ‘buzzball’, originally from coach Brendon McCullum’s nickname. McCullum doesn’t like it though. After the loss at Lord’s, he was positive like Stokes, ‘Of course we are disappointed, nobody likes losing a Test match. We have to do some work. But you can’t go from good to bad overnight. Nothing to get too upset about. As I have said before, this trip has to be cut off. We will come back stronger. Stokes and I are both determined about how we want to play, to move forward. Some aspects just need to be rubbed a little.’We don’t have to wait long to see what the result of that rubbing is. The second Test of the series starts on August 25 at Old Trafford