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“I feel like people who get very very very annoyed about ‘brainless’ shots have convinced themselves that having the right mentality, and getting the right shot selection, is the easy bit of being a cricketer – perhaps because it’s more or less the only bit of being a cricketer we can imagine ourselves being good at,” writes Mike Morris. “Since this England team is looking a bit like the Jimmy White of Test cricket, it reminds me of how people would sigh with exasperation at Jimmy’s careless shots that cost him titles, rather than acknowledge that snooker - like cricket - is a mentally exhausting sport and maintaining concentration all the time is hard.
“My feeling is that Stokes and McCullum have created a team with such incredible self-belief that it isn’t even troubled by the opposition being 430 for 3, and can repeatedly chase huge totals. Establishing that sort of mentality has a cost, and in England’s case the cost is some frustratingly hubristic dismissals. I think we should all accept that you can’t have one without the other, particularly when the cricket is so much fun.”
The point about it being the only thing we can imagine ourselves being good at is very shrewd, I’ve not heard that before. I think there’s also an element of us thinking it’s like a computer game in which you choose a batting mode – defensive, normal, attacking etc – rather than make a series of literally split-second calculations to a 90mph delivery.
I’ve noticed that every time I go shopping I’ll stand in the aisle for about 30 seconds, trying to decide whether I should buy a loaf or whether I need to dial down the carbs, then often after 30 deciding which loaf to buy. So I have no place being excessively critical of those who make errors like Crawley and Pope’s yesterday. I still do it from time to time, though, and I wince when I recall my entitled grumbling when they all went on the pull at Lord’s in 2023. I’ve written and thought plenty of disgraceful nonsense over the years so I’m no better than anyone else.
There’s another Ashes warm-up Test taking in place in Grenada, where Australia were bowled out for 286 on the opening day by West Indies. Not for the first time, Beau Webster and Alex Carey got them out of trouble. Their counter-attacks are starting to evoke Brian McMillan and David Richardson, the defiant South Africa pair of the mid-1990s.
“I wrote this yesterday,” says Gary Naylor. “and I’m still not entirely sure what I mean.
Bazball demands that all situations be looked straight between the eyes with the best version of yourself and an attitude that does not countenance failure. Well, not quite. It’s more the fear of failure that is banished, a subtle but important difference.
“I do know that for every great in sport who confesses to being paralysed by self-doubt before deeds of derring-do, there are many more who only surprise themselves when they don’t win, and never when they do.”
That’s far more eloquent than anything I could come up with. I know what you mean, though, and I agree. I keep coming back to the same thought: that 99.94 per cent of the population would be better at their jobs if their boss was Ben Stokes and/or Brendon McCullum.
That’s not a slight on everyone else – my boss is one the best in the business, he even goes out of his way to read the OBO – so much as an acknowledgement that these have a degree in people. But they’re also human, which means they are intrinsically flawed. I feel like we’ve never been less tolerant of these flaws and I’m not quite smart enough to understand why.
Weather watch
Sun is shining, weather is sweet, yeah. We’ll should get a full day’s play – and maybe even a full 90 overs given India have two spinners.
It’ll get cloudy as the day progresses but there’s only a chance of rain after around 5pm.
Day two roundup
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Ali Martin England in Deep trrouble after Gill’s 269
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Andy Bull India bat England into submission
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Simon Burnton England still believe they can win
Preamble
“Where’s your brain? Where’s your brain?!” Ferris Bueller’s exasperated enquiry of his best friend Cameron Frye has been regularly repeated by England fans in the Bazball era. When England chased 371 at Headingley with almost serene efficiency, it was described as “Bazball with brains” and the narrative moved on to whether England’s top seven was the best in the world.
Life is rarely that simple. Just look at how often we use the phrase “one/two steps forward, one/two steps back”. That’s our natural rhythm, in all walks of life, yet the phrase is generally uttered to express disappointment that the subject hasn’t made the smooth progress we expected.
England took one step back yesterday evening – metaphor, Harry – when they lost three early wickets in reply to India’s mammoth score of 587. They could have lost four or five, with Harry Brook giddyupping his luck on a number of occasions. And though it would be unfair to call their cricket brainless, there was some poor shot-selection from Brook, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope. Bazball giveth, Bazball taketh away. You cannot revolutionise Test-match batting – as England have unquestionably done – without occasionally getting high on your own supply.
In some ways that’s what makes England so much fun. If, say, Andrew Strauss’s 2010-11 side were in this position, resuming on 77 for 3, you could be reasonably confident they would still be batting at the close. This lot? They could be 450 for 4 at the close or 220 all out by mid-afternoon. There are still loads of runs to be scored on this Edgbaston pitch, especially as the ball gets older, so there’s evern chance we’re set for a match-defining day.
England can frustrate the hell out of us, but that’s a price worth paying ten times over. I don’t know about you, because you keep ignoring my WhatsApps and don’t think I haven’t seen the two ticks by the way, but for the last three years they have enriched my life to a degree that almost brings a lump to the throat.
Watching and writing about them has consistently alleviated tiredness, ennui, depression, even fear. Nobody will lie on their death bed lamenting how much time they spent watching Ben Stokes’ England play cricket. But they might wistfully recall day three of the 2025 Edgbaston Test.
Legal disclaimer: the Guardian reserves the right to dispatch the toys and England’s top order as a bunch of egotistical balloons if they are rolled for 150 before lunch.
