19 June

For the cricketing fans, what do you make of ‘Bazball’, the new English approach to test cricket? I think it’s marketing spin. Indistinguishable from the style of cricket the Australians under Taylor and Waugh played. (And earlier under the Chappells, Bradman etc.) Also how the West Indians played in the 1980s. What’s different today is that the stock of quality bowlers has collapsed. So they have a higher run rate than earlier eras of attacking cricket, because the bowlers they’re facing are pretty sub-par. One-day and T20 cricket have been undermining bowling for years, people just want to see sixes. Mark Taylor last night, I think our smartest and best modern captain, made the point any smart captain would make. That the best response to an attacking batting style is an attacking bowling style. Dig it in short, make it harder for batsmen to have a good length for T20-style bashing. And have a bloody good spinner, as we do. The West Indians did that in the 1980s, I still remember Dean Jones trying to ‘Bazball’ Michael Holding, and Holding almost sitting him on his arse the very next ball with a look of contempt. But you need skilled bowlers, which we have, because bad short bowling is even juicier for T20-style bashing than good length bowling. And as an aside, Ponting always has been an unimaginative dullard. The monotonous drone from the commentary box, a humourless plod. A great batsman and fielder, but no cricketing brain. We lost a couple of Ashes series under him due to unimaginative captaincy.