Why so churlish, Mr. Stokes?

An open letter

This post was simultaneously released on Silly Point (which remains dedicated to my cricket writing), and is being published here to commemorate my return to the writing desk after a long absence - of the best kind.

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Dear Ben,

First up, congratulations on becoming the spearhead of England’s middling bowling attack, and on finding your heretofore suppressed mojo with the bat. This is a remarkable achievement, given the weight of captaincy on your shoulders and lately your physical limitations; no doubt, you epitomize the Great All-Rounder that other teams can only fantasize about.

Now coming to the point - why so crabby Saar?

It is just a fact that one cannot now comment on the evolution of Test cricket - all 150-odd years glorious years of it - without making a mention of Bazball, a phenomenon not even one-thirtieth as old. When even I came around and admitted to grudgingly admiring it, what I was admiring of was not (just) the Devil-may-care-ness of it, but the steely determination to scrap unto the death, to not just believe, but act like victory can come from any situation, until the very last ball is bowled. It was this very admiration that had me gushing yesterday in nervy tones to anyone who would listen that India were not safe until England offered a handshake.

But of course, unlike the flattened Australian side that bowed before the unflappable, if battle-weary, partnership of Ashwin / Vihari at Sydney 2021, I did not believe that this England side would offer a handshake at all. What I believed instead, and repeated more than once yesterday, was that England had indoctrinated themselves into the kind of unhinged side who, even if set a mocking target of 100 in 4 overs by an overconfident India, would chase it or try their best to die trying.

You can only imagine my shock, then, when with almost an hour to go, you abruptly strode over to the batters and repeatedly air-handshook to bully them into ending the game because it was drawing (pun intended) to a conclusion you apparently could not digest.

My shock quickly turned to sneering disbelief when you seemed offended, righteously indignant, that the batters, each on their way to well-deserved match-defining centuries, did not share your feelings about ending the game in this brusque manner.

So riddle me this, does Bazball work only when you win or lose in glory? What about that third outcome that any person with an understanding of Test cricket will respect even if not revere - the Hard Fought Draw?

I must take it upon myself to clarify that this was not a dead rubber draw, in which batters plundered runs, each side scores upwards of 600 in the first innings, and a snoozefest draw was a foregone conclusion at the end (or even the beginning) of Day 4. I concede that all 3 results were not possible on Day 5 (India, with backs to wall, could hardly conceive of setting a target), but 2 valid outcomes certainly were.

So why this boyish frustration, thoroughly unbecoming of a cricketer and captain of your hallowed stature, that your golden arm couldn’t do the trick the second time in 3 days? Why taunt deservedly jubilant batters on how they make the last 15-odd runs of their century, when they so superbly repelled all that your attack threw at them for over two sessions? Why take your churlish petulance out on not just a spirited opposition who did their job so well that suddenly you - and not they, for once in this series - had ‘lost’ an unloseable game; but also on the game, which demands more respect from the likes of you?

You see, we do understand that Bazball assumes a certain arrogance, the kind that enables surprise declarations and lionizes losses agonizing or even downright foolish. There is no denying that it is a great revolution, but to repeat a tired cliche, it is not greater than the game. Its arrogance cannot be allowed to inflate to such an extent that it jeers at a spirited draw - and in the worst way possible as you did in the dying hours yesterday: with a misplaced sanctimony about how the game is to understood and played.

“What do you need, an hour?”

We will take all the time we want to, Sir.

“Is this how you want to go to a Test century, off Harry Brook?”

We are not asking you to get your batters to bowl, Sir. Unleash Jofra on us, we will deal with him as well as we have all day.

By the end, your attempts at wounding the batters were cartoonish - made impervious as they were by, oh I don’t know, the 30 overs each had individually blunted from the best you had to offer. Your jousting, I note, made no suggestion that you had gone easy on them until then.

That they got their centuries off part-timers and batters play-acting at bowling was your decision, not theirs. That Harry Brook, possibly your successor, then chose to bowl with lower energy and interest than even a seven-year old football player would muster - was your collective decision, not the batters’. They deserve every last bit of applause that they got and will no doubt continue to get from the legions of India fans in your country and mine.

But what of you? This will not be the first or last diatribe against your ‘tactics’, if that is what you call what you allowed to carry on in that last half hour. Forget the Indian media - for they may well take the high road and focus on a brilliantly resilient batting display against the run of play - but I do not expect the English press to take any prisoners when they dissect your disgraceful behaviour that sullied what was a great Test match.

I daresay that the Indians would have accepted your handshake were it a dead draw, even if someone were, say, 20 away from a double hundred. Because there, to carry on would have made it just about a personal milestone, and that is often a charge one can justly level against Indian batters - obsession with milestones. That would be the kind of match which keeps this format a vexing oddity even amongst those who are otherwise fans of the sport, the kind Bazball could deride. But this wasn’t a dead draw by any stretch of imagination, certainly not with the tourists at 0/2 with a day and a half to play. I know this, because I doubt you would have offered the handshake when you did if India were 8 down and not 4. Then, I am fairly certain, my theory would have been proven right, and you and your firebrands would have made a brave attempt at a victory even with perhaps just 15 minutes to go, and left Indians pulling out the rulebook to check how much a day’s play can be extended.

And so, Ben, I am constrained to repeat, so much did your leadership shock my conscience yesterday - what probably makes Test cricket the great and puzzling sport that it is, is the Hard Fought Draw. A draw good enough can easily rival the greatest of wins - which is why Sydney remains one of my favourite Test matches of all time. Jadeja’s and Washington’s celebrations of their hundredth run was less about that run and more about the 5 hours of attritional batting which preceded them, which not even the most ardent Indian fan can truthfully say they expected. To dismiss their efforts, and those of the touring side to keep the series alive going into the last game, was a pathetic low point which I hope you will come to rue in the days to come.

If Bazball, at the core of which - to us outsiders’ understanding - is imagination, flexibility, and daring, has suddenly become so rigid that it cannot accept such a result as a worthy outcome, then the time has come for some serious introspection.

So indulge me again, and ponder this - is this what you, England, and Bazball stand for?