Mind Games Over England’s Test Cricket

After accolades, adulation and a fair amount of incredulity, sanity appears to have returned to the historic Ashes. Ahead of the second Test at Lord’s, Australia engaged the hosts in mind games even as England pondered their style of Bazball among other things.

A match that went down to the wire. Few remembered drenched sessions lost to rain. Fifth day, and Australia needed 70 odd runs with only two wickets in hand.

It seemed the tables had flipped yet again, from the end of the fourth day’s play when it was resoundingly felt that England couldn’t have a good night’s rest, not knowing that Australia with the depth in their batting were chasing 282 runs on a soft bed of a pitch in Edgbaston albeit on the final day.

The twists continued, setting up the stage for not only the first Test of five, a rarity these days, but also, for several talking points about how Test cricket itself has been turned on its own head in some ways.

Pat Cummins, the current Australian captain, might have walked away a hero. But when the dust died down on an adrenaline-fuelled chase on the final day Cummins did know, as did Australia that the visitors needed to pull up their socks.

A tantalising two-wicket win might have drawn blood in the dying stages of the first Test and could have a telling effect on England’s psyche. But when calm returned to the dressing room, Australia would be the first to know that besides Usman Khawaja, not many had put up their hand to be counted when push came to shove.

Travis Head might have looked briefly as if he had donned England’s colours instead of Australia’s, the way he played to kickstart the momentum at the end of the day. But Australia had some way to go and they know that while having the cushion of a 1-0 lead in an important contest matters, it could disappear quickly if they don’t start to get their batting to come around quickly.

England are continuing to toy and tease with their newfound bristling confidence in a more daring game of cat and mouse.

None would know it better than Marnus Labuschagne who has been Australia’s architect-in-chief in turning their own recent fortunes around. The fact that he played uncharacteristically poorly in Edgbaston is something England will see as having drawn an early advantage.

It is perhaps on those lines that the former South African-now Australian import had a few things to say as if to give more weight to the puzzling conundrum that now floats around the England dressing room like a fog outside their door. Will England continue to play their Bazball-style of cricket? It might also be to offset the strengthening wins in the hosts’ camp about how they could get a better of the player who just lost his number one ranking in batting because of it.

For those not in the know-how, this is the latest gauntlet England have thrown down the throat of international cricket as they attempt to resurrect their own dwindling fortunes.

After the Ashes defeat in 2021, England took stock not only with Joe Root out of Test captaincy, and the onus falling on a rather tentative and struggling all-rounder in Ben Stokes but also, with an unlikely and somewhat controversial appointment even in New Zealand’s former wicketkeeper-batsman and captain for a time, Brendon McCullum.

Known for his belligerent batting, McCullum seemed at first glance a far removed choice for the coaching position given England’s need to breathe new life into their Test cricket. Root said it as much when he alluded without mincing words, that post the ICC Cricket World Cup of 2015, England had put all their eggs in the baskets of Eoin Morgan and the revival of their white ball fortunes.

Although their efforts paid off in the form of England shedding their bridesmaid’s tag and lifting the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019 at home much to the heartbreak of New Zealand, it meant it had come at the cost of another format.

Joe Root, who scored a century in England’s first innings which also set up a first innings total edging towards 400 runs before England controversially declared, seemed edgier in the second innings. He played one loose shot that cost him his wicket. If Australia is to be believed, this gave them a glimmer of hope.

If Australia’s mental disintegration tactics might have felt somewhat subdued, the sledging found a second wind as this is where Marnus targeted in the press conference in the days leading up to the second Test.

Calling it entertaining and interesting from Test cricket’s perspective as an audience, he said from Australia’s perspective, they would want England to keep playing the Bazball-style of cricket. It is more aggressive, sometimes throws caution to the wind and forces players into upping the run rate, rather than be bothered about playing for time or leaving as many dot balls as possible, which are the hallmarks of traditional Test cricket.

England have every reason to believe that their new strategy under Stokes and McCullum will yield results. It has, thus far, with England winning the last 11 of their 14 Tests. Former director of cricket and former skipper, Andrew Strauss, believes that it is a strategy steeped in logic to counter dead pitches and weary bowlers and age old tactics.

It is something even traditional players like James Anderson are endorsing so there is more to the truth of belief in this way of playing rather than just the wins on the scoreboard.

While Marnus admitted that the Australian batting, including his own, did not live up to the billing in the first Test, his alluding to this style of England cricket which has worked rather well for them up until the first Ashes Test, and even then bringing them close to a win, not necessarily only because of that tactic it has to be said, seems more of an attempt to drop seeds of doubt into the England camp.

Several stalwarts who had praised the Ashes for keeping Test cricket alive were also in two minds about whether England needed to drop the cavalier act and revert to their old dogged defiance of Test cricket.

Could England afford to play in a similar brazen format, continue to make similar bold decisions and chance their slice of fortune on the rub of the luck going their way to keep up to the adage of fortune favours the brave?

If left to Joe Root and England’s frontline bowler, Stuart Broad, the answer is a resounding yes. It might seem like an answered prayer to Australia if the sincerity of Marnus’ words are to be believed.

But history has shown that it is the mental ability to use guile to implant doubts in the minds of opposition that has played as much as a part as any bit of one-off recklessness on the field.

England would be careful to turn their backs on a style that has brought them results, and also, a fresh breeze and impetus to how they have approached the long form of the game. After all, the game was not lost by so much.

On the other hand, the game was only lost by so much. A little more caution, a little refrain from perhaps a decision like declaring which might have got them a handful more runs and it might have been a different result.

This is something a purist might say, except that even the most stubborn of traditional lovers realise that the game could use a little bit of tweak on rules. It should allow the players to embrace the challenge of temperament in the longest format of the game.

This is where England needs to take a fresh guard and stand firmly on what they believe has allowed them to stand tall in the first place.

Marnus and Australia know what is at stake and also, what a statistic such as Joe Root being stumped for the first time in his Test cricket career will feel for a player of his stature. And they did not want to miss playing that up, imagining the player too was having doubts over what could be an embarrassment of untold proportions.

And just in case, they needed this one win off the field in what might be another nail biter at Lord’s. Which can happen if both teams continue to barter and trade, Australia with their under par, patchy performances where the skipper seems to be doing the bulk of the work, and England with their edgier style of playing which keeps even their own fans on the edge of their seats.

The fact that Joe Root, one of the most sublime batsmen in contemporary world cricket who often is almost overlooked in the shadows of someone like Virat Kohli, Steve Smith or even New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, has claimed that he intends to play this rendition of style.

Adding that if given a choice to rewind back time, he would play the kind of captaincy role that Ben Stokes currently has. This says a lot not only about the humility of the player to see it and call it if he thinks something is better than the way it was done under him, or by him. It shows his willingness to adapt his style to a game that is not naturally his own but one he believes could keep opening doors for England’s revivalist fortunes.

Stuart Broad addressed the question head on in a newspaper column he wrote. Even as certain quarters of cricket society questioned whether England should be patting their own backs when their risky play might have cost them the lead in the series, he asserted that England would only play an even more aggressive game at Lord’s.

England have a few decisions to make, such as whether to let Jonny Bairstow keep wickets because post his lengthy injury recovery. He seems to have slipped in nicely into England’s new style of batting. but there have been a few slips from Bairstow’s gloves that could have also played their part in England not being able to curtail Australia from grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat.

Australia are trying to throw England off their game. The ploy could not have come at a better time. England were caught slightly flat footed, the result only making the impression worse.

Australia need to play this game off the field as well, because there is not a lot of personnel they can move around, or change their more traditional strategy compared to England’s. What transpires at Lord’s might not just be determined by what happens on the field, but rather what happens between the end of the final day at Edgbaston and the start of the first morning session of the first day’s play at Lord’s.

Will England stick to their ‘roots’? Will Australia build themselves after ‘patting’ themselves back into the game? Test cricket might be at an inflection point, particularly after India’s relative indifference in the recently concluded ICC World Test championship final.

Could it have asked for a better conundrum perhaps? Plausibly. But in a world where format-eats-format, Test cricket will take any slice of fortune it can get, even if it is a riveting battle of suspenseful strategy decisions involving something called England’s Bazball style of Test cricket.