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The Life Cycle of a Movement can be marked by specific steps.

1. The Grand Vision

A charismatic leader or leaders introduce a new and transcendent idea pledging a solution for struggling players.

Thus we find ourselves. They’re getting ready to confront the system down in Brisbane. Tensions are rising. Smoke is rising from the sidelines. An isolated player, exposed, nervous, the phrase ATTACKING MINDSET written on his body as a symbol, has emerged through the lines and is removed under a blanket for a temporary assignment at Derbyshire.

Do you recall the beginning, when the world was still young? The era of early Bazball, of pure instinct.

2. Initial Adoration

Team architects offer a reboot, hope for a future, support, redemption among a group with shared faith in the method.

What was this thing back then? A team united enjoying success. Tattoos. Strength. Determination. Elite male wellness energy. Of course, The team insist Bazball doesn’t actually exist, ironically because if it doesn’t exist, what was that spectacle?

But we know its essence. It’s the batsman executing a stroke so depraved it defies description. It’s the adrenaline of the captain at his peak, a demeanor suggesting: focused titan, strong features, hair woven from beaver hide, truly contemporary you wouldn’t be surprised to glance over and see him playing at mid-off stripped to the waist holding a fish.

It’s the batsman often seen addressing the media, appearing as a cheerful animal formally attired, uttering phrases such as we are actively deconstructing the orange. Certainly, the energy, initially, was uplifting.

3. The Growth Phase

Development stage. Togetherness strengthened by rote learning of key phrases. These ideas are often illogical as a test of “true belief”.

Am I alone? The reaction, the anger, the feeling of letdown post-defeat feels overblown, unwarranted. The batting collapsed in Perth, as they often do in Australia. They were savaged while bowling for a couple of hours as plans unraveled, outplayed by the opponent batting like England but better, responsive to the situation, an athlete shining with a kind of light around him.

And now we have this the attacks, the anger, the sense of English Test cricket as a failure. The feeling seems to be that losing isn’t enough, they must be humbled, to be scoured, obliterated, overwhelmed via traditional methods of the pace attack, the low-fi orthodoxies of Scott Boland, seen enjoying his wickets humbly as if receiving a nice new fishing rod. How will they respond?

4. Hate Bonding

Challenges surface from failures in the plan. Yet, mistakes are denied. It starts to feed on hostility externally.

Ultimately, approaching the upcoming game, we’ve entered a delicious point of tension in the journey of this movement. England could quite easily win overseas through aggressive play. More likely, they could lose just as quickly. In case of defeat it seems we really might be entering the decline.

Ahead of this, a couple of points worth saying regarding this. In the past, during the initial excitement, of optimism and energy, a column appeared suggesting Bazball was a cult. There was outrage, which was helpful because everyone knows the best way of proving lack of cult status is should followers react defensively rejecting criticism of the beliefs.

What has happened lately are equally notable. Criticism of the approach has now become the cult. We have a uniformly angry internet, angry English pundits, images of frustrated supporters abroad cheated out of three days of cricket, like a room full of people wanting fairness.

Conversely, we have the wider backdrop of the host’s complex deep-seated frustration at these weirdly passive-aggressive buccaneers, stating, the methods you value and have developed as part of your identity from the opposition, well, it’s all a bit of a gag after all.

And this is the real point. It’s all cults. Bazball was a cult because cricket is a cult. Or rather, English cricket has always been a cult, a circle, an elite gathering, a restricted environment with a long history of ceremonial past behind it. This has always been a place where power and access are hoarded. It’s the imperial sport of the nation, the early image-makers. And guess what, Britain is itself a cult, a structure of hidden ranks, a place that literally still has a king.

England’s cricketers have been isolated in this environment from a young age. In trying to escape from it, to create a less brutal environment, they are just repeating their upbringing, building another enclosure, a closed circle, however with a modern squad and a mentor who wants you to be yourself if you fit the mold.

Live where your feet are. Confront risks. However much you change, things stay similar.

Considering this, it is perhaps the moment to offer compassion for the approach, to acknowledge its merits, that are numerous. How to define it? Creating a sense of freedom. Questioning traditions. Batting aggressively|Attacking with