Series swept. Humiliation complete. And Steve Smith barely had time to break the Frank-Worrell Trophy on the dais before it was time to look elsewhere.
The simultaneous running of England’s series against Pakistan and Australia’s against the West Indies this month created an awkward scenario.
England’s ‘Bazball’ revolution was creating a buzz overseas that was hard to replicate in Australia, where a fragile Test team was made even weaker by an injury crisis.
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Australia dominated the West Indies from the onset and throughout, playing in front of a paltry crowd in Perth to begin the series. A respectable Adelaide attendance saved the day in some ways, but the affair was just as disappointing in others, with the West Indies losing by their biggest ever margin of 419 runs.
On day three, Australia, with a lead of nearly 300 runs, didn’t enforce the follow-on and threw the bat around in a junk-time session that served little, other than to give the bowlers a few hours’ rest.
It was hard to not turn an eye towards, and perhaps even feel a little jealous of, the show England was producing in Pakistan.
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From T20-style batting, to aggressive field placements and an ultra-risky declaration, England won the unwinnable first Test in Rawalpindi late on day five.
On the same docile wicket earlier this year, Australia and Pakistan played out one of the all-time bore draws, with 1,187 runs scored for the loss of just 14 wickets across five days.
Australia avoided a loss, and later went on to win the series within the final session of the final Test. In fact, Australia has been rather good at avoiding losing under Andrew McDonald, suffering only one defeat – away to Sri Lanka – in seven Tests this year.
England, meanwhile, has enjoyed an equally-prosperous run under new coach Brendon McCullum. Since last summer’s 4-0 Ashes defeat sparked a dramatic overhaul, England has lost just two of 12 Tests.
But between Bazball and Australia’s so-called ‘Ronball’, only one is consistently entertaining crowds.
And Australia should beware, because it could be about to do far more than just that.
“They’re playing like they don’t give a shit, England,” former captain Michael Vaughan told foxsports.com.au during the Adelaide Test. “That’s the way they’re playing. They’re like, ‘we don’t care if we lose’.
“(Australia) better get ready, because the juggernaut is not easy to play against.”
Vaughan was one of four cricket greats from across the globe who spoke to foxsports.com.au last week to give their opinions on England’s cricket revolution.
The 2005 Ashes-winning captain is one of the biggest supporters of the new, bold mindset, which he believes has the potential to change the game forever.
“I honestly think Ben (Stokes) and Baz (McCullum) have revolutionised Test cricket,” he said.
“The more you look at the approach that they’re going for, the more it makes sense, the more it fits into the modern player, the more that you realise that’s what they’re pretty much brought up to do these days (be attacking).
“So why not do it in Test match cricket?”
IS IT SUSTAINABLE?
Few argue with the fact that England is now the most entertaining team in Test cricket, but what remains up for debate is the sustainability of its all-or-nothing approach.
Among the biggest sceptics are the Australian players themselves, who have over the past few months shot down the threat when compared to their own gameplan.
“I’m just intrigued to see how long it lasts, if it’s sustainable,” Steve Smith said in July.
“If you come on a wicket that’s got some grass on it and Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc are rolling in at you, is it going to be the same?
“We’ll see what happens.”
David Warner was equally dismissive when asked about Bazball by foxsports.com.au in August.
“To be honest, I haven’t really taken much notice of it,” Warner said. “I think by all means they obviously have the right to play however they want.
“They know their conditions, so if they feel like it’s sustainable to play that brand of cricket when the ball is hooping and seaming then that’s fine. If it comes off, it comes off. That’s their brand of cricket.
“But from our point of view, we’ll be playing Ronball.”
More recently, Nathan Lyon didn’t buy into Australia changing its own style of play, jokingly nicknamed ‘Ronball’ after coach McDonald.
“We’ve all got our own ways of playing Test cricket and ours is going all right. We don’t need to change ours at the moment,” Lyon said.
At this stage, there is no right or wrong answer in this debate.
Australia will have no interest in tearing up its own playbook as long as it continues to win games of cricket.
And besides, the players are far from alone in doubting England’s ability to come out rampaging anywhere, as it has done in 2022.
“I don’t think you can afford to play like that in all conditions,” batting legend Brian Lara told foxsports.com.au.
“There are certain conditions around the world you can afford to play like that.
“It may not happen in England … You can’t bat like that at Headingley. I can tell you that for sure.
“He (McCullum) will, I’m sure, come up with different plans.”
This, coming from a man who amassed nearly 12,000 Test runs at 52.88.
Mark Waugh is a fan of Bazball – an unofficial term that the England team do not like. He said it’s “really good” for Test match cricket and offers a great, winning mindset for teams to adopt.
“I just think it’s great for the game. And I think other captains and nations should have a look at how they’re playing the game,” Waugh said.
But the Australia great, who averaged more from 17 Tests in England (49.54) than he did in Australia (43.21), is also doubtful about its potential to succeed at the Ashes.
“It’ll be interesting to see how they do play against us,” Waugh said. “I think they’ll still be aggressive, but you’re not going to score at seven-an-over against our bowling attack.
“There’s going to be times where they’re going to have to rein it in a little bit.”
He added: “I just think it’s going to be a great series. I don’t think Australians have to fear anybody with the team they’ve got.
“I think it will be great cricket, entertaining, but we should start favourites.”
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Vaughan, however, is of a different opinion. He believes that for England to retreat when it comes up against Australia’s world-class attack would be to go against the very purpose for which Bazball was created.
As such, he said that Australia would be foolish to continue to play down England’s new tactics.
“We were all sceptical. We were all cynical. It’s not our jobs to be so,” Vaughan said.
“If you look at what Australia has done in English conditions over the past 17 years, they haven’t succeeded that much. They only drew the Ashes last time here.
“I think Australia, Pat and his team would be silly to not start thinking that this England side are onto something.
“England will have Jofra (Archer) back. Mark Wood, (James) Anderson, (Stuart) Broad and (Ollie) Robinson – we know what threat they are in the UK. And the juggernaut of the batting team will come out swinging.
“So I think the Aussies are being naive if they think, ‘oh we’ve got Pat, we’ve got Josh, we’ve got Starccy, we’ve got Nathan Lyon’.
“There will be bumps, but I wouldn’t want to play against it. That’s all I’m saying.”
Lying somewhere in the middle is Mike Hussey, who believes England will maintain a level of aggression at the Ashes, but will find it harder to be successful against Australia’s vaunted Test attack.
“There’s going to be times when England get rolled because they’re so aggressive and if the conditions aren’t right, and you come up against a really good attack, it’s not going to be that easy,” he said. “But I’m sure they’ll still try to move the game on as quickly as they possibly can.
“I think that’s why we’re all salivating about the Ashes series next year because we know how England are going to play. And I know the Australian team is a very good team, especially when they’re all fit and firing.”
‘IT’S WIN OR LOSS’
England has been proving people wrong at every turn so far this year.
Only once has the high-risk game plan blown up spectacularly in the team’s face – it was rolled for 165 and 149 by South Africa at Lord’s.
Never has the spectacle been boring watch.
That is largely owed to the fact that England has effectively eliminated the most unfavourable of four results possible in Test cricket; the draw.
“It’s a no-draws mentality. It’s win or loss,” said Hussey, who was part of England’s coaching staff during the T20 World Cup last month. “To risk losing a Test match for an opportunity to win, I think that was what was so good (in Rawalpindi).
“And even hearing stories from some of the England players saying in their summer, chasing down in the last session, it was like McCullum would say ‘it’s either a win or a loss boys. I don’t want a draw’.
“They’d be, not happy, but prepared to lose in the pursuit of victory, which I think is the really impressive thing.
“It would’ve been easy to bat a bit longer, play Pakistan out of the game and then try and have a go at them. Then it probably would have petered out to be a boring draw.”
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The Australian team Hussey entered in 2005 also had more interest in winning every Test match than it did in merely staying undefeated.
Being willing to lose games of cricket in order to win them has always been a hallmark of the game’s greatest teams.
This England side is not that yet, but it might not be as far away from achieving genuine greatness as you might think.
Today, England can lay claim to one of, if not the greatest, limited overs team to ever play.
Just seven years ago, England was at a dead-end having been unceremoniously bundled out of the 2015 ODI World Cup by Bangladesh.
Four years later, following a complete re-imagining of how the nation would play white ball cricket, England was lifting the World Cup on home soil. England also reached the semi final of last year’s T20 World Cup, and then won the whole thing last month in Australia.
Granted the game is far too nuanced for white ball revelations to transfer to the red ball, but the parallels are clear to see.
In broad strokes, England is following the same basic mentality of freeing its players from their shackles to go for broke, knowing there will be no short-term consequences, such as being axed for a reckless dismissal.
Australia’s players are also offered a sense of freedom, although it’s more confined to how they prepare for games while respecting each player’s individuality.
In terms of how Australia’s Test cricket actually plays out on game day, it looks like, well, Test cricket.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR TEST CRICKET?
The West Indies series did little to entertain. How many young fans walked away from that series feeling genuinely inspired?
We must still acknowledge its significance in providing a contribution to the health of the game globally. Australia can’t simply play Border-Gavaskar and Ashes series in rotation at home, boosting the coffers of only three nations while the rest suffer.
Even if Australia could that, it’s waiting for those series that helps make them so special.
Nonetheless, it speaks at an alarming volume that the biggest talking point over the course of the two-Test series had nothing to do with Australia, or the West Indies.
Instead, it was what was happening 10,000 kilometres away, where Test cricket’s biggest revolution in generations was taking shape.
England won its three-Test series against Pakistan in nine days while batting for just 253.2 overs.
Needless to say, the series virtually never stood still.
In March, it took Australia 15 days to win in Pakistan having batted for 545.1 overs.
The same result it might’ve been on paper, and yet, it feels so different.
What England’s fearless approach to Test cricket now means more broadly for the game is unclear.
Some think it can work, others don’t – but to debate the tactics of Bazball might be to miss the point entirely.
What does Test cricket want to be amid an ever-expanding, hard-to-keep-up-with cricket landscape that is evolving at breakneck speed?
Must Test cricket evolve, with more alternative products being shoved in fans’ faces? And do teams have any responsibility in entertaining fans, or is it simply their job to find ways to win games of cricket?
These are questions that McCullum considered long ago and, whatever his answers were, they impressed the ECB enough to give him the keys and rip up its entire playbook.
“I think there’s a bigger picture,” Vaughan said. “And full credit to Baz.
“As soon as he got in he said, ‘I want to save Test cricket. I want to be part of a group that helps to save Test match cricket.’
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“And for a long period of time, I’ve never known a country, particularly here (in the UK), that’s talking about Test cricket as much as we have done.
“Baz didn’t need to take on that job, so when he did, he obviously wanted to do something completely different, and Ben (Stokes) is the perfect captain to do that with.”
A nation in awe of Test cricket again, swept up by an exciting win-at-all-costs brand that never ceases to entertain.
Even the staunchest Australia fan can surely admit there’s something special about that.
One thing that’s for sure is that next year’s Ashes now looms as the moment-of-truth for Bazball.
Defeat to Australia at home could see it come crashing down, while victory would cement its place as an agent for everlasting change in Test cricket.
“It could be one of the greatest Ashes series with the way that they’re going to come play,” Vaughan predicted.
