Some thoughts on Bazball

[sussexpob]

In the late 1980s, Mike Tyson at the very peak of his powers met Muhammed Ali on a talk show host, and both were inevitably asked who would win a hypothetical fight between the two, should it of ever happened. The shy, star-struck Tyson respectfully said that Ali was the greatest fighter ever, and he would be no match for him; Ali responded by saying "yeah, but if this guy caught me"... before comically falling in his chair pretending to be dead.

While it was good natured mutual respect, both gave fairly accurate assessments If the two ever fought, their range of styles would have almost certainly dictated that Ali's speed, movement, combinations, longer reach and superior technique would provide for a much more objectively optimal style for winning at the elite level of the sport. Tyson, the smaller man with only superior power over his opponent, would be reduce to hanging in for as long as possible, and try to land the nuclear payload contained in his right fist with enough of his peak force to put Ali's lights out. Every boxer has a punchers chance....

People view sporting strategy almost uniquely in the prism of objectivity; that there is some secret sauce available to everyone that means one can win. The truth is, optimal strategies are based on what is available, be that skills, personnel, physical capacity or some other variable. In our hypothetical boxing match, should Tyson have tried to defend Ali, and out jab him to wear him down, he would have been mauled - even if in most cases such a style would be objectively the best available. An objectively sub-optimal solution is often optimal dependent on circumstances. Tyson's only chance of winning would be to swing like someone after 12 pints of ale, and hope one or two stuck right on the chin.

People seem to have forgotten quickly that England's batters faced a similar conundrum in recent years. Faced with good, tight test match bowling, our batters techniques have not stood up to the job. Batsman following the process of normal test match strategy were unable to survive because their techniques were not of a required standard to live up to constantly defending. Someone like Crawley is a perfect example - he will frequency offer a false shot outside of his off-stump on certain levels of bowling, so attempting to bat out 100 balls and make a platform is somewhat lost on him. With such a short shelf life, what is the point of playing to your weaknesses?

I dont think that Bazball was ever intended to be a catch all generic blueprint for test match success, merely a blueprint for getting the best out whatever tools were available. Test match teams that have batters with robust techniques maybe aren't ticking time bombs that are always a handful of overs away from their next false shot defending their wicket. Take Usman Khawaja.... he has shown he can bat for 150-250-350 balls regularly opening the batting, so there is no need for him to cash in on his available time, as his technique buys enough time. The same cannot be said of Crawley, who left to defending his wicket, has proven he will always be a few overs from pushing his bat outside the offstump and knicking off. If you are always 50 balls away from an edge, may as well find out how many runs you can score before that happens, then simply bunker in for 10 and then get out.

In this way, Bazball has been very effective. Since Mccullum took over, the average England batter has averaged between 49-50 balls per dismissal. In comparison, between 2015-May 2022, England's batters lasted 57 balls on average. So while the extra aggression means English batters last shorter innings, it is more than made up by the fact that England score a lot more (4.77 an over in comparison to 3.1) with the balls available. The net effect has been a dramatic increase in batter averages, from 30 runs per wicket to a decimal under 40. This figure in itself is high in comparison to recent, and distance, test match wicket averages.

Taking this a little further, general test match stats say that a batsman gets out to roughly every 11 false shots. Since Bazball was implemented, England's false shot ratio is 1 x 4,5 balls. Which puts it about perfect on the general test ratio. While England make more frequent false shots using bazball, they still get away with an average amount of false shots per wicket. Which further provides evidential proof that the approach of cashing in while you can is statistically sound. To note, the England false shot ratio is higher in this Ashes (5.0 balls per shot), and not too distinct from Australia's (6.1 balls), despite the gulf in scoring rates. In fact, one could argue based on these statistics, its a noticeable drop in false shots produced by England's bowlers which really stands out this series (across Bazball era, its been 5.0 generally, which also includes the flat pitches of Pakistan which were much, much higher). There is an interesting case then that while false shot ratios are a little higher, and England's batters bat less balls, the scoring rate pays off on both accounts for an extra 100 runs per innings.

Of course, we will never know whether this approach is a consequence of improving one team over a generically good tactic that works for all teams, until a better base batting side attempts it. For instance, would Steve Smith increasing his RR at the cost of innings length work? We simply don't know until someone does it, so we have some data. But if false shots show anything, it does seem to indicate a statistical pay off in general in the data for England.

The only problem with this optimalisation of approach for England is, playing always "optimally" can in itself become somewhat of a negative. In the game of poker for instance, game theorists nowadays posit that playing the "perfect" mathematical strategy for success is counter intuitive, because it becomes predictable, and your opponent will adapt their own behaviour and strategies to counter it. In this case, if you only bet on hands where you are always mathematically likely to win, your opponent will not engage, or can read your play easily, rendering the strategy null and easy to exploit/counter. The "perfect" strategy is therefore one that is dependant on being inefficient or counter-productive a certain percentage of the time. This ensures that your opponent reacts to your imperfections, and sets them up to be exploited by your primary strategy.

In this way, we can see the failures of the bazball style. Australia have reacted to England's optimal strategy by defending solely for that, and giving other opportunities to exploit - one's that England have declined to take in their pursuit of their primary goals. In the last test, had England adapted their style back to one that is defensive, one that has generally been "imperfect" for them, it would have still nevertheless have been a sound idea. When the fielding team puts 4 men on the boundary and bowls in areas where you can only score by taking on those fielders, the element of risk is very high. The ability to adapt to less optimal strategies does, however, mean that switching your play back can exploit the reactions in the field. If England had defended and looked for singles, the Australian captain would start to bring the field in to save the bleeding runs, and at that point the primary strategy to target big hitting once again becomes useful.

In fact, at this point, England have Australia in a position of slight fear of Bazball. Cummins has set his fields abnormally defensively even with the new ball, which in turn sets England for easy runs if they have them, and leaves less catchers for the error. The ability to resort to Bazball at any stage plays on the psyche of the opponents, and is in itself a very powerful tool tactically. If they played to the situation more, they then also boost the likelihood that their primary tactics work. After 10-20 overs of nicking singles from a field spread on the boundary, any captain has to either react, or let the opposition have easy runs. At the point England have won a mini-battle, and should realise that. Any situation they find the opponent with 7 men on the boundary and singles for free on offer, is surely a situation they would accept happily? The main problem is, England haven't taken those opportunities with any length of time.

The Australian reaction is in many ways a tactical blunder, but one that has worked because England have been dogmatic in their pursuit of their playing style. Common sense says, if they deviate from it and adapt, they could have teams on the run. Imagine a scenario as captain where you bring the field up and get smashed, put it back and a team just knocks you for 4 singles an over into gaps? England have the ability to do the former, and should have the ability to do the later.

I would like to think Bazball is a work in progress, and that these errors will eventually be straightened out, with England finding further improvements in efficiency. In many ways, losing 2 tests might be useful in the long run in achieving that aim. There has been a slight god complex about England in their recent era of success, and a feeling of invincibility in the way they play. But the plan could work even better if they try to perfect it.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Good stuff. There was possibly a statistical forerunner for the way ENgland play in the career of McCullum, who unilaterally began batting in a Test like an opener in a T20 about a decade ago. With pretty good results.

The response of the pundits seems to be to want the advantages of the strategy without the risks. It reminds me of when Morgan took over the ODI team, and such luminaries of the 50 over game, Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton would drown any England setback in the negativity of their own white ball careers. Without seeing that risk was an essential, inseperable part of Morgan's positivity.

I like watching England bowl with more attacking fields. I think Cook cost England wickets for years with his instinctive negativity in the field. No one more so than Stokes.

And my support of ENgland has been reawakened. I really lost interest when Cook was skipper, and that didn't change under Root. I like the way they play now, and their optimism, and accept it won't always work.

And they have stated that they will play the game in a good spirit. Which I look forward to. In that light, maybe they should review how they repsonded to Carey's stumping. I think they had a justified grievance, but feel they failed the 'don't be a d*ck' test.

[meninblue]

I am not impressed the way England have batted recently in the 3rd test. Run scoring is fine but many batsmen have fallen to very bad shot selection. Bad balls should be well left keeping bat away from line of the ball. England batsmen have tried to score runs off wicket taking balls. Some off them have played utterly rubbish shots to balls where no batsman can have control playing those Instead on such balls they tried to score runs which has led to easy wickets for Australia. Play on the merit of the ball - score 4's and 6's of bad balls rather than trying to score runs of very good ones.

[sussexpob]

I am not impressed the way England have batted recently in the 3rd test. Run scoring is fine but many batsmen have fallen to very bad shot selection. Bad balls should be well left keeping bat away from line of the ball. England batsmen have tried to score runs off wicket taking balls. Some off them have played utterly rubbish shots to balls where no batsman can have control playing those Instead on such balls they tried to score runs which has led to easy wickets for Australia. Play on the merit of the ball - score 4's and 6's of bad balls rather than trying to score runs of very good ones.

It occurs to me watching England for many years, that they simply don't have that many players who can play each ball on its merit. Zak Crawley is the absolute zenith example.... within 50 balls of most innings, he will play at something outside offstump and edge it. So rather than bat out 50 balls going nowhere until that happens, the idea is simply in terms of efficiency, if he bats aggressively he might score some runs in the meantime, with the added bonus that when he is on the rampage going at SR80+, a fielding team will be far less inclined to have catchers waiting for that ball with his name on it.

For all that has been said in the last decade about England and why their batting fails, many people used to focus on their aggression and playing sloppy shots, but looking at players who have played more than a few innings..

Lees.... SR43
Dom SIbley----SR34
Dan Lawrence - SR53
Jason Roy .. SR58 (considering he was billed as an aggressive go play your shots option, not that high).
Rory Burns... SR43
Foakes....SR48
Hameed...SR32
Jennings....SR42
Malan...SR40
Westley...SR42
Stoneman ...SR44
Hales...SR43 (one of the fastest modern day LO hitters)
Vince....SR49
Buttler.... SR54!!!
Robson...SR44

And so on.....Out of that list, the only people who go over 3 an over are Buttler, who is England's quickest striking batsman ever (and only just), and Dan Lawrence. But both end up merely bang average, the rest are well below.

Actually, for top order batters, had Sibley and Hameed scored a 1000 runs, they would be in a shout for the lowest strike rates ever recorded in the history of test cricket. Only Mike Smith's SR of 30 comes below Hameed, and that is from an estimated figure that cant be verified, because it predates scorers actually computing many innings. Basically, for confirmed innings, these are two of the lowest, if not THE lowest top order specialists, ever to play the game.

So its never been a case of mentality or method. If anything, England went back to grinding cricket at snails pace, and what happened? They broke all time records for low averages of innings. The batters couldn't see off that many balls without errors. What Bazball has done is to appreciate that we simply don't have many cricketers who can bat a day. So bat a small part of the day, and try and score as many as possible.

[sussexpob]

Its the same with any form of tactical blueprint, the measure of a tactic has to be judged on the components that make it up. If England had a stock of batters particularly at 1-3 who could bat for 200 balls and put match-winning performances in, then I am sure they would be not trying to smash every ball to orbit. What we have, is a long line of batters going back over 10 years who can barely average 30. So the question really is, has Bazball made our players more useful? Well Duckett is averaging 40 this series, Crawley's average this summer is on the up, Pope has got better. Bairstow overturned a dismal period of form to explode last year. Harry Brook was the first batter in an absolute age that hit the team and scored runs.

Bazball is never going to be perfect, and it's probably never going to have 6 batsman averaging 40-45 plus in sync. But neither does any method with the tools available. And yes, I do believe at stage it gets too wild, and England need to know when to adapt and be more street-wize. But, especially chasing those 250-300 totals recently, they can make a target look very small at stages, and that forces teams into making errors or plays on their nerves.

[Durhamfootman]

And my support of ENgland has been reawakened. I really lost interest when Cook was skipper, and that didn't change under Root. I like the way they play now, and their optimism, and accept it won't always work.

I agree with that, but I confess to becoming rather annoyed at the seeming lack of attention to the detail. Bowler's regularly overstepping, because they don't bother checking for it in the nets any more; YJB wandering out of his crease between deliveries, when most batsmen go sideways when they feel the need to take a walk to gather thoughts between deliveries.... daft little things like that played quite a big part in putting England 2-0 down to a side that have generally done the basics that much better

I love the ethos, I think it's the way forward, but it isn't old fashioned to make sure the basics are done correctly. It would help win more matches and cement the ethos

As far as agressive shot selection goes, I don't see that as part of the ethos. For me, Bazball (I hate the word, btw) is not about going mental at every opportunity, it's about not being afraid to go mental when it's the right thing to do. That's the way I see it anyway. I think the several test matches where Stokes came out swinging stupidly from the off was about letting everybody else off the leash rather than a demonstration of how to play. He doesn't do that so much now.... he's made the point

[Durhamfootman]

What I do rather like is 9, 10, 11 coming out and swinging hard. None of that Flower stuff where he always seemed to blame the bowlers for not scoring enough runs to rescue the batters. No need now for the bowlers to come out hoping to survive just long enough to not end up having to carry the can for a poor innings total.

[alfie]

I am almost alarmed to find myself in total agreement with you , Sussex , on this issue But that surely shows we must be right...

Excellent deep dive into the stats to back up your case , by the way. I had just posted some thoughts on the match thread querying the Australian field placings which dovetail with some of your points : and I believe Brook and Woakes did indeed adapt their games rather effectively on Sunday in the manner advocated. Suggests that England are perhaps aware that they are indeed a "work in progress" and we will see further refinements as they proceed.

I suppose one of the questions we might ask is whether Joe Root , the one batsman who is undeniably capable of batting all day , should be so keen to take on quite the level of risk he has in a couple of these matches ? With all those around him going hell for leather - and probably maximizing their chances by doing so , as per your analysis ; it might still be better for England if he held more to his personal "busy" but not outlandish batting style. (Doesn't have to abandon the "reverse scoop" altogether. But perhaps play a bit more to his strengths which generally have him scoring at a fair clip anyway)

Of course the critics of Bazball (I hate the term as much as DFM - and McCullum , by the way. But I fear we are stuck with it ) have been waiting behind the curtain ever since the early good results , ready to pile on as soon as anything went wrong. Another reason why this latest win was so important , as it might give them pause to reflect on whether their kneejerk criticisms should be dialled back and a bit more appreciation of the gains that have been made - however this particular series ends up.

Re Arthur's point about the "spirit" and England players reaction to the Lord's controversy : I actually think it has been , overall , a plus. They might fairly have been thought to be just a little too "nice" (maybe apart from Robinson !) towards the Australians early in the series. Realising that wasn't going to be reciprocated and taking a hard line themselves is probably helpful for them. Stokes channels his anger very effectively ; Broad just loves a chance to play the pantomime villain , and the likes of Root and Wood are always going to smile whatever they are doing or thinking . I do have some concern that the whole business might have scrambled Jonny's mind a bit (partly from the embarrassment of getting out that way !) so he had better settle that quickly if he is going to play on.
Incidentally although some Australian media had a bit of a go at Stokes over his comments , I thought he was quite decently restrained. Didn't condemn anyone : just answered , honestly I think , when questioned how he would have handled a similar matter as a fielding captain. Hardly qualifies as a whine. But hopefully any to and fro over that business is behind us all now and we can get on with the cricket.

[sussexpob]

Of course the critics of Bazball (I hate the term as much as DFM - and McCullum , by the way. But I fear we are stuck with it ) have been waiting behind the curtain ever since the early good results , ready to pile on as soon as anything went wrong. Another reason why this latest win was so important , as it might give them pause to reflect on whether their kneejerk criticisms should be dialled back and a bit more appreciation of the gains that have been made - however this particular series ends up

In the past I have not been afraid to put the boot into England, but the fact is, if you told me after that Windies away series at the start of 2022 that we would be in the position to possibly win all three Ashes tests vs a very good Australia side by summer 2023, I'd have laughed at you. I think some people might get carried away with the Ashes factor and the demands it places on a side to perform - but a little perspective is needed. It really isn't that long ago that this side looked quite frankly appalling. And yet results have upturned quite quickly, and until this summer, pretty dramatically. And there hasn't been a dramatic change in personnel either. McCullum and Stokes are doing this much with the same tools at their disposal.

[sussexpob]

I suppose one of the questions we might ask is whether Joe Root , the one batsman who is undeniably capable of batting all day , should be so keen to take on quite the level of risk he has in a couple of these matches ? With all those around him going hell for leather - and probably maximizing their chances by doing so , as per your analysis ; it might still be better for England if he held more to his personal "busy" but not outlandish batting style. (Doesn't have to abandon the "reverse scoop" altogether. But perhaps play a bit more to his strengths which generally have him scoring at a fair clip anyway)

Root seems to be the exception to the point, because the natural assumption is he would be better off sticking to his natural game, but his form is above his general career level since May 2022, so the increase in SR has somewhat been beneficial to him so far. Whether or not that will continue to be the case in the longer term is an unknown, but my personal view is yes... I'd like to see Root being there to bat through the carnage and secure one end, let the inferior quality bats bang the ball to all parts

[sussexpob]

As far as agressive shot selection goes, I don't see that as part of the ethos. For me, Bazball (I hate the word, btw) is not about going mental at every opportunity, it's about not being afraid to go mental when it's the right thing to do. That's the way I see it anyway. I think the several test matches where Stokes came out swinging stupidly from the off was about letting everybody else off the leash rather than a demonstration of how to play. He doesn't do that so much now.... he's made the point

Having the licence to fail by playing attacking strokes is also an underrated quality for players. One of the things that really stands out is, England have had a generation of batters who were almost paranoid to attack the ball, and that is down to the inherent idea that one has to be suspicious of attacking batsman in test cricket, and particularly early in a career, someone unproven who wastes a wicket with a reckless shot would be tagged as not having the mental fibre for this form of the game.

Alex Hales and Buttler really stand out as players who tried to conform to an objective standard and approach, but both ended up batting to their own weaknesses and failing. And the question was never "lets see what Hales stroke making can do", it was always "can he block the ball as required". Arguably the purest hitter of the cricket ball I have ever seen in an England shirt, batting like a crap version of Mike Atherton.... did we expect it to work? If Hales was to fail, I wanted it to be in a blaze of glory, not lamely snicking off having never attempted to get out of gear 1. At least in the Bazzer/Stokes dressing room, we'd have found out what Hales A game had to offer.

The notion that aggression is not a good default setting for test cricket is also somewhat disproven by history.....

Bradman scored a 100 runs in a session of a test 8 times, which considering it has been done so rarely, is quite mad.... and while its debated what his SR was due to incomplete records, some people said his SR was up in the high 70s-early 80s. In the context of the old pre-T20 game, that is very very high scoring. I guess watching Bradman in 1930 would have been like seeing Chris Gayle in the 2010s in the IPL.

And arguably the best team ever, Australia under Waugh... notably aggressive with the bat, and went whole years with SR averages at 4 an over.

[bigfluffylemon]

Some good stuff in this thread . Agree with most of it.

If this is the way test cricket has to go in the T20 era to take account of modern techniques and sensibilities, it may yet prove there is life in the old dog yet.

[Durhamfootman]

Alex Hales and Buttler really stand out as players who tried to conform to an objective standard and approach, but both ended up batting to their own weaknesses and failing. And the question was never "lets see what Hales stroke making can do", it was always "can he block the ball as required". Arguably the purest hitter of the cricket ball I have ever seen in an England shirt, batting like a crap version of Mike Atherton.... did we expect it to work? If Hales was to fail, I wanted it to be in a blaze of glory, not lamely snicking off having never attempted to get out of gear 1. At least in the Bazzer/Stokes dressing room, we'd have found out what Hales A game had to offer.

I think this is one of the most exciting things about all of this

And it has the potential to reverberate through the game. Durham have embraced this mantra fully this season and are scoring runs heavily and quickly, then setting attacking fields and forcing wins, even when the weather intervenes, to now sit top of their table. Alex Lees, who was the epitome of a nuggety, dour, blocking England opener under Root has been scoring heavily and quickly all season for Durham. He's just scored 3 hundreds in consecutive innings, is the top runscorer in county cricket atm with 918 runs and has scored them at a strike rate of 74. He's doing that because he knows if he wants to get back into the England side that's what he has to do. The more batsmen that do this, the better it will be for the health of county cricket and then, eventually, England

[meninblue]

I am not impressed the way England have batted recently in the 3rd test. Run scoring is fine but many batsmen have fallen to very bad shot selection. Bad balls should be well left keeping bat away from line of the ball. England batsmen have tried to score runs off wicket taking balls. Some off them have played utterly rubbish shots to balls where no batsman can have control playing those Instead on such balls they tried to score runs which has led to easy wickets for Australia. Play on the merit of the ball - score 4's and 6's of bad balls rather than trying to score runs of very good ones.

It occurs to me watching England for many years, that they simply don't have that many players who can play each ball on its merit. Zak Crawley is the absolute zenith example.... within 50 balls of most innings, he will play at something outside offstump and edge it. So rather than bat out 50 balls going nowhere until that happens, the idea is simply in terms of efficiency, if he bats aggressively he might score some runs in the meantime, with the added bonus that when he is on the rampage going at SR80+, a fielding team will be far less inclined to have catchers waiting for that ball with his name on it.

For all that has been said in the last decade about England and why their batting fails, many people used to focus on their aggression and playing sloppy shots, but looking at players who have played more than a few innings..

Lees.... SR43
Dom SIbley----SR34
Dan Lawrence - SR53
Jason Roy .. SR58 (considering he was billed as an aggressive go play your shots option, not that high).
Rory Burns... SR43
Foakes....SR48
Hameed...SR32
Jennings....SR42
Malan...SR40
Westley...SR42
Stoneman ...SR44
Hales...SR43 (one of the fastest modern day LO hitters)
Vince....SR49
Buttler.... SR54!!!
Robson...SR44

And so on.....Out of that list, the only people who go over 3 an over are Buttler, who is England's quickest striking batsman ever (and only just), and Dan Lawrence. But both end up merely bang average, the rest are well below.

Actually, for top order batters, had Sibley and Hameed scored a 1000 runs, they would be in a shout for the lowest strike rates ever recorded in the history of test cricket. Only Mike Smith's SR of 30 comes below Hameed, and that is from an estimated figure that cant be verified, because it predates scorers actually computing many innings. Basically, for confirmed innings, these are two of the lowest, if not THE lowest top order specialists, ever to play the game.

So its never been a case of mentality or method. If anything, England went back to grinding cricket at snails pace, and what happened? They broke all time records for low averages of innings. The batters couldn't see off that many balls without errors. What Bazball has done is to appreciate that we simply don't have many cricketers who can bat a day. So bat a small part of the day, and try and score as many as possible.

Playing attacking cricket is fine, but the shot selection still has a lot of importance in test cricket imo. With poor shot selection leading to wickets or a collapse, the chances of posting mammoth totals like 500+ are unlikely. Scoreboard pressure will also not be there. With poor shot selection the team can put up 500+ provided the quality of opponent bowling is not good. It's very difficult to expect a batsmen to show wonderful shot selection if in case he is told to scored 6 rpo against top class bowling attack at this level. So if England team collapses below 300 in test innings, there is nothing to blame them given that they ahve been told to bat at a particular pace. Also when other team scores 500+ totals, how the 60 overs 360 runs with a wonderful scoring rate of 6 rpo going to stand.

[meninblue]

This Bazball is a topic of discussion in media before this series started. One part of discussion being whether England would change approach and other being whether it would work in India or not if England stick to it.