adminNOTTINGHAM. – Strap yourself in, England are playing Bazball.
The two weeks that coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes have been in charge of the Test team have breathed life into English cricket.
The 17,000 that gobbled up the free tickets had the feel-good factor even before the fifth day of the second Test against New Zealand began.
What that 17,000 didn’t know is they were more likely to catch the ball than any of the New Zealand fielders.
On their own, the numbers of England’s five-wicket win are staggering.
A chase of 299 completed in 50 overs – England’s fifth-highest and fastest of all-time. Then there is the most boundaries ever hit in a Test and the second-highest number of runs scored in a Test in England.
Jonny Bairstow, a one-man Black Cap wrecking ball.
A 77-ball hundred, almost beating a 120-year record for England’s fastest Test ton.
In the 43 balls he faced between tea and when he got out, Bairstow thrashed 93 runs, with 10 fours and seven sixes.
He should have been arrested for abusing the ball.
But this glorious, sun-kissed afternoon in Nottingham wasn’t just about statistics, it was about falling back in love with an England Test team that have been hard to even like.
To go back just over a year, against the same opponents at Lord’s, England declined a final-day target of 273 in 75 overs.
Yes, the conditions were different to the batting utopia of Trent Bridge and it was an inexperienced England team, but it was also free-hit of a match, not part of the World Test Championship.
Now, knowing that a bore draw would ensure they couldn’t lose the series, England committed to the chase as if their lives depended on it.
“I’ll say it simply. We were either winning this game or losing it,” said Stokes.
“The message was run into the fear of where the game was, rather than stand still or back away from it.”
McCullum – nicknamed ‘Baz’ – told us it was coming, too. When he arrived at Lord’s with his jeans rolled up and bare ankles showing, he said: “Test cricket needs England to be strong, competitive and playing a watchable style of cricket. If not, it is in big trouble.
“I think Test cricket has been on a slightly downward path and the only people who can change that really are England.”
As the New Zealander sat on the Trent Bridge balcony, watching from behind the kind of sunglasses none of his predecessors could have pulled off, England turned his words into actions.
In England’s first innings, Stokes charged at the ball like the second coming of McCullum, the man who still holds the record for the fastest hundred in Test cricket.
Joe Root, the most complete batter England have ever produced, reverse-scooped the second ball he faced on day four for six. – BBC Sport.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter