July 6, 2024 02:06:36
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Jasbeer Singh

(Chief Editor)

Sports

Has 4-1 hammering in India changed the cult of Bazball? ‘It’s not a binary choice between fun or win

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The margin of defeat was definitive. 4-1. The aura felt gone. The Bazballers had arrived on these shores touted as serious foes. But eight weeks later, they shared the same fate as any other Test side to visit India over the past decade. But was it enough to sway away the believers of Bazball? Not so soon. “From a fan perspective. I love it,” Simon Finch, The Barmy Army’s lead trumpeter since 2020, tells The Indian Express. “Before Stokes and McCullum, we won only one game out of 17. England are a much-improved side and I think they will continue to improve, and no matter what, we will be there supporting them.” But while Finch’s Bollywood renditions at Indian venues may have been a big hit, England’s cricket was anything but. “It’s wanting to be a better player,” captain Ben Stokes suggested at the end of the series. Cult, however, was the term former English skipper Nasser Hussain had used to describe the side after the Rajkot routing. “At times, Bazball in this regime has been described as a cult where you cannot criticize, either within or externally.”

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