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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barney Ronay

HISTORICAL FACTS: Test of brendon mccullum s coaching mettle starts now with shaky england | History Defined

Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes
Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes are tasked with working to improve England’s ‘brittle top order, long tail and samey bowling attack’. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

Bazbackability! What is it? And does this current England Test team have any? The answers to these questions are of course: 1) It’s not anything at all, just a made-up word; and 2) No, they don’t, because, again, it’s just a meaningless made-up word. But the fact remains, even buzzwords exist for a reason. Perhaps defeat by South Africa in the first Test might be even quite useful in helping to clarify a few things.

None of the assembled media were foolish enough to ask England’s head coach about the B-word during his debrief at Lords. Brendon McCullum has been scornful of the Bazball stuff from the start, rightly so given it was only ever intended as a throwaway jape, invented off the cuff by ESPNcricinfo’s Andrew Miller.

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