England Test coach Brendon McCullum isn’t a fan of the term ‘Bazball’ which has been used to describe the team’s aggressive brand of cricket. Since McCullum’s appointment as England red-ball coach, the team has been ultra-aggressive with the bat and have stormed to four wins in a row since the New Zealand series at home.
The latest of those performances against India at Edgbaston resulted in England chasing down the biggest ever total in their Test history. And they hunted down the target at close to five runs per over.
Australia Test vice-captain Steve Smith recently said that he’s been watching a bit of what England have been doing recently and is intrigued by that while casting doubts over how long can the approach keep on yielding positive results for them and wants to see if it will work during the Ashes.
When McCullum was asked about Smith’s comments, he agreed that while India and New Zealand are good teams, Australia pose a different challenge
“I saw those (comments) flick up on one of the feeds somewhere,” McCullum told Adam Gilchrist on SEN WA Breakfast. “It’s quite right, it is going to be a big challenge when we take on Australia. It’s going to challenge our method and it’s going to challenge what we’re capable of achieving and that’s pretty exciting I reckon.”
“Isn’t that what the game’s all about? Is to sort of reinvigorate yourself and then be confronted against the very best. I do believe that both New Zealand and India are two very, very good cricket sides as well. Australia is a different kind of challenge because of the history of the Ashes and the rivalry which exists there.”
McCullum then went on to call ‘Bazball’ as a silly term which doesn’t do justice to the thought process behind the actual performances.
“I’m sure that our guys will try and still maintain a really positive approach. I think the real key is not just the crash and burn if we look at the approach of how the guys have done it,” McCullum said.
He continued, “That’s why I don’t really like that silly term that people are throwing out there, because there’s actually quite a bit of thought that goes into how the guys manufacture their performances and when they put pressure on bowlers and which bowlers they put pressure on. There’s also times where they’ve absorbed pressure beautifully as well.”
Get all the latest updates on Cricket News, Cricket Photos, Cricket Videos and Cricket Scores here