England cricket fans were offered a glimpse of life beyond Bazball on Saturday, a rare glimpse that paradoxically yielded one of the tourists’ most competitive days of this summer’s Ashes series. However, the optimism was overshadowed by the reality that the series had already slipped from their grasp, leaving UK pundits, writers, and supporters reeling.
Ben Stokes’ side now faces the daunting prospect of losing the Ashes inside just three Tests, still trailing by 228 runs in the chase for Australia’s imposing total of 435 in Adelaide. With only four wickets remaining and a monumental task ahead on day five, the situation is bleak.
On day four, the tourists had offered a glimmer of hope. England’s bowlers tore through the Aussie tail, taking 6-38, and the batsmen showed commendable resilience. Zak Crawley (85), Joe Root (39), and Harry Brook (30) stood their ground, exhibiting patience and careful shot selection. Their disciplined play marked a departure from the typically high-octane, risk-taking Bazball approach.
Yet, Australia’s relentless bowling attack responded with precision. Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins exploited every opportunity, ensuring England’s fight remained under constant pressure.
“They have started to write the ‘Bazball’ obituaries during this Test with England heading for a resounding Ashes defeat. As it transpires, those eulogies would have been relevant even if Stokes’ team had avoided Lyon’s late flurry of wickets,” wrote Tim Spiers for The Athletic, commenting on Brendon McCullum’s side.
“Bazball died here in Adelaide and, for long periods, England — for all the remarkable, logic-defying highlights they have given us since 2022 — suddenly looked all the better for it.
“What are we to make of it all? Should we knock England yet again for completely ditching their principles in conditions that McCullum said were ‘more attuned to our best style of cricket’? Or applaud them for finally applying common sense and playing the match situation?
“It has to be the latter, albeit it’s still fair to chastise them for applying these methods far, far too late to save the Ashes.
“They wanted Bazball to entertain us. They wanted us to love their cricket whatever the result. But this orthodox afternoon in Adelaide was by far their most likeable innings of the series, despite the score at the close of play.”
If England falls in Adelaide, the five-match series will effectively be decided, with Melbourne and Sydney still awaiting after Australia’s emphatic wins in Perth and Brisbane by eight wickets each.
“All that hope the Bazballers inspired has evaporated and jobs are on the line in Melbourne and Sydney,” wrote Nick Hoult for The Telegraph. “Stokes and Joe Root will never know what it feels like to win a live Ashes Test in Australia and the possibility of a third Ashes whitewash in Australia in 20 years is an unpalatable reality for England.
“At the start of the tour, when the air was filled with promise, Stokes described those England captains who had won in Australia as the ‘lucky few’ and believed he had the arsenal to join the five to win an away Ashes since the second world war. Now all he can hope for is winning a dead rubber and ending the 15-year drought for any Test win in Australia.”
Veteran analyst Simon Wilde described the scene as “a dark time for English Test cricket.”
“The public at home is turning away from the game through a mixture of disappointment and disgust. Youngsters who might have been engaged had Ben Stokes’ team even been competitive will now remain among the unconverted,” Wilde wrote for The Times.
“There is a generation of England players who do not know what it is to win an Ashes series. Stokes himself and Joe Root, who have done so much for the game in our country, have — amazingly — yet to play on a winning side in Australia. The next tour here may be a step too far for both. With the Hundred now drawing big salaries, the dangers of further erosion to the Test format in England are clear and present.”
Crawley and a subdued Brook attempted to stabilize the innings, but Brook’s attempted reverse sweep resulted in his dismissal to Lyon, drawing sharp criticism.
“Wildly off balance, with his limbs splayed from an abortive reverse sweep, Harry Brook looked as if he had no idea what had hit him,” Oliver Brown wrote in The Telegraph. “It felt a fitting motif for England’s befuddlement on this tour, for their woeful inability to anticipate the Australian juggernaut thundering towards them.
“Brook, the country’s most extravagantly gifted young batsman, just stood there dumbfounded, confused as to whether he had been bowled or stumped. Advancing to a delivery from Nathan Lyon that pitched outside off stump and spun devilishly, he could only swipe at thin air as the ball clipped the top of leg stump. And sure as night follows day, his team would tumble through the trapdoor once more.”
Barney Ronay, writing for The Guardian, saw Brook’s dismissal as emblematic of the decline of Bazball:
“Tough on Harry Brook, yes. But we must also be tough on the causes of Harry Brook. No child is born playing performative reverse-hoicks with a Test match to be saved, just as most acts of cult-like behaviour have their roots in a smooth-talking cult-like instructor.
“For England the beginning of the end of the age of Baz started when the disciples of Baz began to deny such a thing even existed; to insist that the buckle-up-and-enjoy-the-ride stuff didn’t actually exist at all, but was instead a creation of another, much worse cult, also known in this world as ‘the outside’.
“With this in mind, Brook’s dismissal in Adelaide was at least a tell, a moment of anti-gaslighting. No, you really didn’t imagine all that. For the England regime, a hard stop is now in sight, and in the usual way of these things, in the fire of an overseas Ashes immolation. But at least we got a moment here, an epitaph for an era, albeit one that was incoherent, misspelt and appeared to have been scrawled on a hotel napkin with a frankfurter.”
England’s top-order struggles continued with Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope failing to make an impact in the fourth innings. Duckett was dismissed early, poking at a Cummins delivery that went to Marnus Labuschagne at second slip.
“Nothing has encapsulated England’s inability to impose themselves on Australia in this series more than the decline of Duckett,” Paul Newman wrote for The Athletic. “The opener’s all-action style and refusal to leave almost every ball has been a feature of England’s ‘Bazball’ style since he was plucked from international obscurity by England coach Brendon McCullum to replace Alex Lees at the top of the order towards the end of 2022.
“But Duckett has been a shadow of himself throughout this Ashes campaign and his out-of-character, tentative prod at a Cummins delivery saw him dismissed by just his second ball at the start of England’s improbable run chase in Adelaide. It was a ball he could have left on line as well as length. Instead, he guided it obligingly to Marnus Labuschagne at second slip.
“It summed up England’s series in a nutshell.”
Out-of-form number three Ollie Pope was also dismissed cheaply for 17, with Labuschagne taking a remarkable one-handed catch. Veteran commentator Jonathan Agnew lamented the lack of internal squad competition for spots, stressing the importance of accountability:
“You need competition for places. The big criticism of mine of this squad is there’s no competition, there’s no accountability. So you get out, you play a rash shot: ‘OK, well anyway I’m playing next week, that’s good news.’ It shouldn’t be like that in a team.
“You need to have people breathing down your neck. You need to have somebody in form, playing games between Test matches who’s getting into form and putting pressure on the people that are playing. It’s a good thing … and that’s just not happening.”
Despite the high expectations heading into the tour, England has mostly experienced one-way traffic. Former captain Nasser Hussain highlighted the difficulty of reversing momentum in Australia:
“As I know, as various captains out here know, once you lose and it starts going in the wrong direction in Australia, this crowd gets behind a nation and it becomes very difficult.
“And it’s very difficult to stop that momentum of the opposition.
“If they lose the Ashes (on Sunday), which looks likely, you’re going to have to pick yourself up. You’re going to have to think of all the people that are flying out to the MCG and the SCG for Boxing Day and New Year’s Day Test matches, hard-earned money saved, you think of those people and people back at home waking up at 3am trying to follow this side. You’re playing for your country and you keep going right to the end.
“History tells you coming here as an England side, it’s so difficult to win out here. But it will feel like a missed opportunity because of the players Australia has missing. They’ve had Hazlewood ruled out the whole series, Cummins didn’t play in the first two Test matches, Lyon left out of Brisbane, Steve Smith not playing here – they are some of the greats of the game and it still looks likely that Australia will go 3-0 up.”
Zak Crawley summed up the mood in the England dressing room succinctly:
“We came here to win the Ashes, we’re always an optimistic team, an upbeat team, and we’ll try and put up as much fight as we can.
“They’re a very, very good side. I feel like it was always going to be tough coming here, against them.
“They were the favourites going into it and they’ve proven why.
“Obviously we’ve been slightly short of our best, but a lot of credit has to go to them. They’ve not allowed us to be our best.”
