Bazball, England's 28-ball scoreless sequence and the art of the leave

New York Times

4 days ago

Like any sport, cricket is about things happening. Runs, wickets, catches, big shots, small shots, missed shots, appeals, people slipping over, people slipping over and their trousers falling down (which happened twice, in quick succession, to Indian players a couple of matches ago), bad decisions, good decisions, no decisions.
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But for 28 balls across about 25 minutes of England's first innings against India at Lord's on Thursday, nothing happened.
Well, not literally nothing. Players still moved about, balls were still bowled, champagne corks were still fired from bottles onto the outfield from the quaffing masses in the stands.
England, though, did not score a single run. There were 28 consecutive dot balls. The scoreboard did not move.
And yet, it was still oddly compelling to watch.
It's quite difficult to explain to those unfamiliar with cricket why this is the case, why a passage of time with a complete lack of the central point of the sport — scoring runs — is still interesting to watch.
It's partly because the art of 'the leave' is a key part of cricket's tapestry. Knowing whether it's a good idea to try and hit the ball, or whether it's more prudent to simply watch as it flies by, is one of the crucial skills of the game. It's an art. An appreciation of space. A judgement call.
Sometimes, less is more. Doing nothing is doing something. It's not quite as simple as saying that leaving the ball means you're not going to get out, as the many batters who have tried this only to hear the dreaded clatter of the ball hitting the stumps will attest. But knowing when you shouldn't play the ball in those instances that you don't have to is a test of skill and temperament.
It's partly because it became a sort of low wattage psychodrama with England's batters, Ollie Pope and Joe Root, fighting their demons as they jabbed and missed at balls; as they struck shots firmly but straight to fielders, and mulled over which balls to leave.
Here's Pope flinging everything he's got at a wide drive but missing. There's Root loosely flashing and the ball whistling past the edge of his bat. Pope again, groping desperately at a ball that seems to turn sharply around a corner.
This was them struggling against some high quality quick bowling, from Jasprit Bumrah and Mohamed Siraj. It was perhaps less a philosophical choice from the England batters, and more the bowlers doing the equivalent of binding their arms together with bandages, turning them into lumbering mummies as opposed to cricketers with north of 17,000 Test match runs between them.
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But it's also because it's entirely against the raison d'être of this England side.
Since Brendon McCullum took over as coach and Ben Stokes assumed the captaincy in 2022 — the 'Bazball' era — this team has defined itself as one that makes things happen. Principally, scoring runs at a frantic rate.
There was a 30-ball sequence against India at Edgbaston in 2022, but that passage of play included a leg bye and so, by definition, was not entirely 'scoreless'. Today's 28-ball sequence without scoring is therefore a 'Bazball' record.
The next longest lean spell was 27 against India in Rajkot in 2024, but that included three wickets, which tends to inherently slow the scoring rate.
Their overall run rate in that time, in 38 Test matches before this one, was 4.62 per over. In 10 of those Tests they have scored at over five runs per over. In one, against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, they scored at 6.73 runs per over.
For context, in the same period the next fastest rate is 3.63 runs per over, by India.
At the end of that 28-ball scoreless run, England's run rate in this Test was 2.75.
Siraj on the wind up 😅 pic.twitter.com/v2ea76PFIp
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) July 10, 2025
It had ticked up a bit as the day wore on: at the tea break, the rate had inched up to 3.12. But clearly, this was a very different style of cricket. It is tempting to wonder, from an English perspective, why they haven't applied this approach before.
Like, for example, in the last Test match, when they could have tried to bat out the final day and drawn the match to retain a 1-0 series lead.
'You used to get those passages of play where you had to soak it up and the bowlers are on top,' said former England captain Mike Atherton on Sky Sports. 'It wasn't easy and they were trying to force a mistake. You have to get through those passages of play. Root and Pope did.'
Even if Pope's reward for weathering the storm was to be dismissed by the first delivery after tea.
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So what do we conclude from this? Was it just a strange quirk of statistics, a relatively short spell in which two good batters just couldn't get going?
Was it just a really brilliant spell of bowling, two of the world's finest tying England down as they are very capable of doing?
Or was this a sign of maturity, proof that England can actually sometimes play with some restraint, and not like a toddler who has downed three cans of Monster energy drink?
Maybe it's a combination. Whatever is the case, it demonstrated one of the great things about Test match cricket: that sometimes nothing happening can be compelling.