If Bazball is dead — and obituaries are being written furiously — it would be a pity. England didn’t invent the attacking, free-flowing style, nor are they the first team to display a passion for the game that seems to go beyond victory and defeat. The great West Indies teams of the past played cricket with similar enthusiasm, each player expressing himself.

However, Bazball seems un-English in the land of Geoff Boycott and Alastair Cook, defensive batters of great skill but all too aware that cricket was livelihood and caution mattered above all.

Skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum see cricket as entertainment, feel they owe something to the spectators, thoughts that would not have occurred to earlier generations. It probably helped that they were both born in New Zeal

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