Bazlife and the Beautiful Game

I didn't manage to read it from back to front, but "My Life and the Beautiful Game" was the first book I took seriously. Of course, the World Game and Pelé were the central characters, not cricket. But as a youngster, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, aka Pelé, was a mesmerising hero to me. If only I could hang in mid-air at the back post and head a bullet cross-goal in a World Cup final. If only—believe me, I tried!

Eventually, after coming to my senses, my sporting focus shifted begrudgingly from football to cricket. Why should I complain? Cricket has been nothing but good to me, since my dear mother put me on the plane to New Zealand back in 1984, to now, not playing—thankfully—but still coaching and enjoying seeing young cricketers trying to transition to the professional ranks.

That said, Bazball and the new custodians of Indian cricket did everything they could to regain engagement from someone who has spent increasingly less time watching the game than previously. I hadn’t realised my condition until last evening (AEST).

The Oval Test had everything that I had been missing while being lured to the world of TV golf watching, culminating in as intense an hour of Test cricket as anyone could imagine. The sight of Chris Woakes, left arm in a sling, attempting to run a bye while riven with agony was excruciating in its rawness. There was so much that went before this in a series that ebbed and flowed across 25 days of combative Test Cricket. Finally ending at 11.56 am local time (8.56pm AEST) when Mohammed Siraj removed the off stump of a flailing Gus Atkinson—Kalidasa, one of India's most celebrated playwrights, could not have scripted it better for the visitors.

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As Sky Sports' Ian Ward was clumsily pressing England's coach, Brendon McCullum, on the series as a whole, and some of his charges' decisions the previous evening, while trying to bring the upcoming Ashes series into the conversation, I found myself self-reflecting on my grey divorce with cricket and this confusing England team.

What I gleaned—firstly, the cricket part.

Cricket always seems to confront me with its perpetual paradox—forever on life support while miraculously extricating itself from a zombie state to a place of unequalled vibrancy, alertness, and full consciousness. I postponed dinner and what goes with it, not wanting to miss a ball. The Oval crowd engaged and held their breaths in unison. The players' balcony was full, empty, and busy again. Only seven people were playing this game: Siraj and his able ally, Prasidh Krishna. Wicketkeeper Jurel, and catchers, KL Rahul and Captain Gill. Then the two batters. The rest of the Indian's are spread far and wide, hoping in the main to remain spectators, Ravindra Jadeja aside. Truth be told, I was calling for Jadeja to replace Krishna, and then the three-card short ball trick and Josh Tongue's furniture was spread far and wide. What do I know, pour yourself a drink!

And for the England part.

For all the infuriating bullshit rolled out by Team England, the many moments of headless posturing, the pointless sideshows that follow this charabang, McCullum and his merry men actually know what they're doing, and they are genuinely rewriting the English cricket playbook.

Ben Stokes and Joe Root are generational cricketers and sit at the axis of England's wheel. Around them are bowlers with pace and bowlers with skill. They now have a wicketkeeper in Jamie Smith who will challenge Alex Carey this winter. Ben Duckett is as annoying as you could possibly be to bowl at, and Harry Brook is, and could be anything in the future. Brook's second innings century was labelled a "Hoodlum Hundred"—I loved the term, but if you go back over Brook's first 20 balls, you will see a restrained observation, while he determined the best time to break for the line. If only he had recalibrated and calmly steered his team home, but then where's the fun and bravery in that—his coach will forever plead the bravery clause. Listen for that through the Ashes series. See, I can't help myself!

In my defence, though, England does like to tell us and the rest of the cricket world that they are in the process of saving Test cricket. It takes two to Tango—they should be clear on this. And self-preservation is a mitigating factor in their claims. The strongest form of job security comes from being genuinely functional and hard to replace. The Bazball way must be easier to learn on the inside than the outside. I still have no clue how Zac Crawley has crept to a Test batting average of a shade over 30 in nearly 60 Tests—and he averages less than your correspondent did in first-class cricket! But then he might be "good around the group?"

Anyways, I sat down to be positive and share with you a returning relationship with the game. Not to mention a chance to break my lack of writing here. I can report seeing enough through this Test match to await November and the ensuing Ashes series in Australia eagerly.

Some highlights:

If that was the wrong kind of hundred from Harry Brook, then my rear end is a fire engine. It was simply incredible batting. Gus Atkinson, a long way short of a gallop, returned with eight wickets for the game, shouldering a heavy workload in England's second bowling innings. Yashasvi Jaiswal, after several reprieves in India’s second innings, posted another pulsating hundred—he now has six from 24 Tests and averages over 50, opening the innings—I'll leave that there!

And Washington Sundar swinging for the fences; some of his ball-striking was only matched by Harry Brook—he must feel some redemption after speaking out of turn at Lords—which pundit Stuart Broad stated as his highlight of the series—ahh well, Broad isn't long removed from the dressing room. And then the two captains, Ben Stokes and Shubman Gill, opposites in their own ways, but equally lethal when it came to production and guile.

Not wanting to self-contradict anymore, I should close by saying thank you to both teams and the beautiful game for restoring my oscillating faith—and thank you, Baz—in the greatness of Test cricket. It's good to be back.

Damn, who can forget, Mohammed Siraj, cricket's true superpower, not only for his on-field performance, but also for his untouchable bi-lingual interview post-game. Rest easy, cricket's most loved villain.

Best, and see you soon.