Bazball arrived in Australia preaching fearlessness and fun, but left the Australian shores shredded. After almost four years of planning, England lost the Ashes in just 11 days, and the series 4-1.With an arsenal of raw pace fast bowlers, Ben Stokes’ England and thousands of their travelling fans arrived Down Under with optimism and hope of reclaiming the urn in Australia after 15 years. Instead, the Bazballers were thrashed.
Australia were brilliant throughout the series as Mitchell Starc emulated Ian Botham to produce a series of a lifetime with 31 wickets and two half-centuries. Travis Head became the first Australian opener to aggregate more than 600 runs in a series since Michael Slater’s 623 in the 1994-95 Ashes.Under the leadership of Starc and Scott Boland, who claimed 20 wickets, the Australian bowling attack was outstanding even without Josh Hazlewood for all five Tests, Pat Cummins for four of the five matches and Nathan Lyon for three.England, by contrast, struggled to keep their bowlers fit and did little to offset that weakness through selection.Before winning the Boxing Day Test, the fourth match of the series in Melbourne, the closest England came to winning a match was in the series opener in Perth. Guess how many fast bowlers they played there? Four. Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Mark Wood and Braydon Carse.When Wood was injured and ruled out of the second Test, England did not bring in fast bowler Josh Tongue but opted for batting all-rounder Will Jacks, who also bowls off spin, at The Gabba.With a first-class bowling average of 43.47, only marginally better than Joe Root, Jacks at best was a batter who could bowl and not the other way around. It was a poor selection, made with the intent of shortening the England tail rather than taking Australian wickets.England did not correct this mistake across the series and never again played four frontline fast bowlers together in a match apart from the Perth Test.In the four Tests he played, Jacks took six wickets and bowled just 65.4 overs. By contrast, Josh Tongue took 18 wickets in the three Tests he played and bowled 97.2 overs. Interestingly, England’s lone spinner Shoaib Bashir, whom the current management had backed for 19 Tests, did not play a single game in the five-match series.By replacing a wicket-taking fast bowler with a batter who could deliver some off spin, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes effectively increased the workload and stress on England’s fast-bowling attack, led by Jofra Archer.England’s bizarre selection also allowed Australia’s lower order to add valuable runs and failed to fully exploit Australia’s own injury concerns.
Similarity with India’s defeat Down Under
When India toured Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2024-25, they applied somewhat similar tactics and were defeated 3-1.In Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana and Akash Deep, India had five frontline fast bowlers in their squad for the series. However, not once did they play four of them together in a match.Across all five Tests, Nitish Kumar Reddy effectively served as India’s fourth fast bowler. He bowled just 44 overs in the series, took five wickets and conceded runs at an economy of 4.31.With defensive selections throughout the series, the team management repeatedly put strain on Siraj and Bumrah. The selections not only broke Bumrah by the fifth Test but also reduced India’s chances of winning matches.With three fast bowlers, Nitish Reddy and a spinner, sometimes even two, India’s primary issue throughout the series was a lack of sustained threat suited to the conditions. Between 2018 and 2022, India played four fast bowlers in 14 Tests outside Asia, winning six and losing seven.In the same period, when they opted for three fast bowlers in 18 Tests, they won five and lost ten. Accepting a longer tail in SENA conditions has delivered better outcomes than protecting the batting at the expense of bowling strength.
Two defensive coaches
While they project aggressive personas and an appetite for results, both McCullum and Gautam Gambhir have often pursued respectable totals rather than maximising their chances of taking 20 wickets in Test matches.On their respective tours to Australia, both effectively communicated through selection that playing an extra batter or all-rounder instead of a frontline fast bowler strengthened their playing eleven.That is negative thinking. One additional bowler contributes more significantly to a bowling attack than one extra batter does to the batting unit. The runs conceded due to a lack of threat only make life harder for the batters, as opponents can attack for longer periods.England’s selections were aimed at providing extra batting cushion in the lower order in case of a collapse, rather than increasing their chances of taking 20 wickets.This is not to suggest that selecting a fourth frontline fast bowler would have won England the series. They would still have needed better catching, having dropped 17 chances, and more disciplined batting. However, it would have significantly improved their chances of dismissing Australia twice in a Test match and competing for victories.Winning Test matches in SENA countries is never easy for touring sides. It becomes harder still when teams dilute their bowling due to a lack of faith in their batting. India learned that lesson last year, and England have learned it again the hard way. Unless both sides adopt similar conservatism, as seen during India’s tour of England in 2025, this approach rarely succeeds.
About the Author
