‘It was brilliant decision to declare’: Mark Taylor analyses Stokes’s
Bazball approach and praises Cummins’s temperament
Former Australia captain Mark Taylor says he thinks the first innings
declaration by Ben Stokes was a brilliant decision.

https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/it-was-brilliant-decision-to-declare-mark-taylor-analyses-stokess-bazball-approach-and-praises-cumminss-temperament-8686419/

Mark Taylor, legendary Australian captain, is clearly a great fan of
England’s attacking approach in Tests but also admires Pat Cummins’s
temperament and his willingness to consult Steve Smith for captaincy tips.

“Bazball suits England cricket at the moment because the side was
playing very poorly leading into this era, and your best players are
aggressive players,” Taylor tells Mike Atherton in The Times. “It’s not
groundbreaking stuff. Your job as a leader is to bring the best out of
your players. So if you have defensive players who want to bat long then
play a long, defensive game but if you have aggressive players, get them
to play their natural game. I stayed in the same hotel as the England
team in Birmingham and I could sense that they are relaxed and genuinely
enjoying their cricket and that’s half the battle.
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“Harry Brook is a very good player. Zak Crawley I think is a good
player, although he likes to go fishing outside off stump a lot. They
see the ball early, pick up length early which is the sign of a good
player, so if your best players are aggressive players then play
aggressive cricket.”

Much of Bazball, when fielding or batting, is not letting the game drift
aimlessly, and Taylor loves that facet. He cites the Usman Khawaja
dismissal in the second innings, when Ben Stokes went around the stumps
and slipped in a slower ball with three fingered-grip that was played on
to the stumps.

“The Khawaja dismissal in the second innings was a classic piece of
Stokes captaincy. Round the wicket, a slightly different field set to a
batsman who was in and settled, bowling what we in Australia call a
“nude nut”, a blancmange ball, which Khawaja chopped on to his stumps.
It’s not always the magnificent delivery, it’s about trying to find ways
to create doubt and uncertainty or change a batsman’s thought process,”
Taylor said.
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Stokes declared England innings closed late on the opening day with 393
on the board; in hindsight it was criticised. Taylor doesn’t concur with
that criticism, though.

“Ninety-nine percent of captains would take 400 in the first innings, so
now Stokes is thinking, ‘I can put Warner and Khawaja under pressure for
25 minutes.’ To me it’s a no-brainer. I thought it was a brilliant
declaration.

“They didn’t take any wickets in that final 25 minutes but did you see
the running between the wickets from Warner and Khawaja that night?
Panicky. They have played cricket together since under-14s but were
running like they’d never batted before together. A couple of
36-year-olds, one with more than 100 Tests, one with nearly 70, and they
are running like they’ve never played before. All because of that
declaration.”

Taylor’s one criticism was with their batting approach on day four in
the second innings.

“You don’t have to bring the opposition back into it; there’s nothing
wrong with batting Australia out of the game. People may say that’s
conservative but I don’t think it is. Just play appropriately. Joe
[Root] didn’t look like getting out; he played a rash shot and you have
to take some accountability for that. That’s the time England got a bit
carried away,” said Taylor.

Taylor also admired Pat Cummins’s approach as Australian captain.
Australia preferred to go rope-a-dope, playing catch-up after England
threw in the first punch on all days.

“I sensed watching the first game that no longer playing the dominant
role, if that’s how you want to put it, doesn’t worry Pat. He seemed
quite comfortable with it. It worried me more than him. I wondered
whether they had gone too far into a defensive mode, almost as if they
were saying, ‘We are going to go the other way and be more conservative
than we would normally be.’ I wasn’t against a deep point from the
outset, but I was surprised with the deep square leg, especially as we
didn’t bowl a bouncer for an hour and a half. So I thought that was an
overreaction.

“But what I like about Pat is that he doesn’t have a big ego. He’s
confident in himself for sure and is no shrinking violet as we saw at
the end of the game, but he’s not the type to let his ego get in the
way. That was a great Test for him to win, just for the validation that
the method worked. You can imagine if they hadn’t won, all the questions
around whether Australia should be upping the ante, so I reckon it came
as a huge relief.

“I’ve always maintained it’s easier to do the job as a batsman, because
the big moments are on the field and particularly if you are a fast
bowler having to think about all the other stuff, it’s not easy. I think
Pat has been clever in the way he’s used Steve Smith. A great mate of
mine and a bit of a mentor, Ian Chappell, hates it as he thinks it’s the
captain’s responsibility alone to make decisions, but I think as a
fast-bowling captain, it’s smart to almost hand it over when bowling.”