This England-India Test isn’t Bazball as we know it but is no less intriguing for that

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Everything about England’s Test cricket in the three dizzying years since Rob Key urged supporters to strap themselves in and enjoy the ride has been about entertainment.

“We don’t do draws” was the mantra of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum as soon as managing director of England cricket Key threw them together in 2022 on a mission to redefine the longest form of the game.

But something different has been taking place at Lord’s over the past three days. Something that has virtually disappeared under captain Stokes and coach McCullum, with their high-octane style of play that quickly became known as Bazball — an old-fashioned, slow-burning but hotly-contested Test match that could easily end in parity after five long, sun-baked days and more than 30 hours of play at the home of cricket.

Only one Test has resulted in a draw since Stokes and McCullum joined forces on the back of a particularly turgid period during which England had won only one game in 17 under a far more conservative management duo of skipper Joe Root and coach Chris Silverwood.

And that one draw was only because two days were lost to rain at Old Trafford in Manchester when England were in a commanding position at a pivotal stage of the most recent Ashes series against Australia two years ago.

The third Test of this series against India, deadlocked at 1-1 after two of the five games, may buck that trend.

It has been a throwback, three evenly-matched days so far in which India, remarkably, were dismissed for exactly the same score as England, 387, just 15 minutes before the close of day three, creating a one-innings match with only two days left to produce a positive result.

Now England will have to try to score at their Bazball norm of more than five runs an over — unprecedented in more than 200 previous years of Test cricket before they came along — in their second innings if they are to have enough time to bowl India out a second time and win. India, meanwhile, will need to dismiss England again by the close of the fourth day tomorrow to give themselves enough time to force a win on Monday on a last-day pitch.

It is the sort of situation that used to be commonplace before the success of short-form Twenty20 cricket revolutionised the game and threatened to turn the Test format into an anachronism with no place in a modern, impatient sporting world.

A friend with no interest in a sport that can last five days without a positive result one way or the other at the end of it once said to me, when I was a Tests-obsessed teenager many years ago, that “cricket is a game that is never ‘boring’ to people like you, it’s only ever ‘intriguing’.”

The point being that Test cricket devotees, those who are prepared to pay £175 ($236) to watch a day’s play at Lord’s, will always find something that interests them, even on a slow day, on a soporific pitch and with over-rates so slow in this game that fully 32 of the scheduled allocation have been lost so far.

And there has been plenty here in north London this week to intrigue, fascinate and, yes, entertain Test cricket fans in a match still with as much potential to explode into life over the next two days as it has to peter out into that Bazball rarity, a five-day draw.

Not least on a third day full of the ebbs and flows that seem destined to be a regular feature in this series between two of the powerhouses of today’s Test game.

First came a relatively calm session of Indian progress interrupted on the stroke of the lunch interval by a brilliant piece of fielding from Stokes that had dangerman Rishabh Pant run out with a direct hit while trying to hurry his partner KL Rahul to a century.

Then came a spell in which Rahul was dismissed just after reaching three figures and India were seemingly doing their best to throw away their position of strength with some madcap running between the wickets that resulted in four missed run-out chances for the home side.

Best of all was a hostile and quite magnificent display of fast bowling from the returning Jofra Archer, who marked his first Test in more than four years due to injury with the fastest spell he has ever produced for England — 11 successive balls over the 90 miles per hour mark, peaking at 94.1.

Shortly after lunch on day three, Jofra Archer bowled consistently at over 90mph (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

After the tea interval, however, the match went back to sleep again as Ravindra Jadeja guided India into an unexpected position of parity with a knock of 72 and Stokes put so much into his bowling that a message was sent onto the field by McCullum to tell his skipper not to overdo it and injure himself.

There was time for a bad-tempered finale that could lead to India captain Shubman Gill being fined for his angry reaction to English attempts to delay the game.

England ensured there would only be time for one over in their second innings with some blatant time wasting that annoyed India before Zak Crawley — who repeatedly pulled away as Jasprit Bumrah prepared to bowl the third ball of the over and called for the physio after being hit on the glove by a Bumrah delivery shortly afterwards — and Ben Duckett reached the safety of the dressing room two runs ahead without loss.

The intrigue now will come on the fourth morning, when England have to decide whether they will risk defeat by trying to force the pace with ultra-attacking play and get far enough ahead of India to pressurise them on Monday. Or whether the grown-up version of Bazball will see them accept they do not have enough time on another disappointing pitch that is hardly conducive to all-out attack and just try to ensure they won’t go to Old Trafford for the fourth Test, starting on July 23, trailing 2-1.

Either way, there will not be any complaints from Test cricket devotees.

This series will never be boring to them, only ever intriguing.

Even during a rare quiet, but still absorbing, match.

Click here to read more cricket stories on The Athletic, and follow Global Sports on The Athletic app via the Discover tab

(Top photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images)

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