Stokes and McCullum inspire bowling attack to transform England | England v South Africa 2022

There were some dreamy pictures of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, England’s inner circle, the bro-tocracy, during the South Africa Test series. At Old Trafford, there was the balcony tableau after Stokes’ hundred, coach and captain bathed in August sunshine, a collage of shades, beards, guns, tattoo sleeves that gave off an alpha energy so powerful it might have been responsible for melting part of the pavilion orbit.

At the Oval, there was footage of the pair lounging together on the turf Baz-Head Revisited style, Sebastian and Charles in Cinch-branded lycra tracksuits.

True elite sporting friendships are rare. More often these are forged out of necessity, external pressure and the illusion of team spirit generated by victory. But Stokes and McCullum’s relationship really seems to be based on mutual affection along with a fertile tessellation of ideas and intentions. It may sound crude and speculative, but then the best working conditions can often be comfortingly straightforward.

Stokes lost his Kiwi father last year. For now, while the sun is shining, he really seems to have found a Kiwi big brother.

Either way, those in charge of England’s men’s red ball team look happy. Not only is this contagious, good for business and great TV product, but it hasn’t been possible to say that in a long time. And this was an undeniably vital summer of Test cricket.

How did they do it? From one win in seventeen to six out of seven. From emotional exhaustion to the summer of Baz love. Most attention will focus on batting, if only because it is the easiest. Fourth innings chases, the shimmy down the pitch to the seam ball, Jonny Bairstow setting in on world-class bowlers like a man merrily tickling his way through a plasterboard wall with a polo mallet. This has been the iconography of the summer.

But in many ways what Stokes and McCullum did with the bowling was even more important and even more impressive, especially the handling of Stuart Broad. England have needed Broad this summer. Whisper it, and certainly whisper it around Stuart Broad, but he might not have played much if everyone else had been fit. They haven’t been: and Broad is always fit and always wild. In all walks of life, sometimes just not walking away really is a vital quality.

So Broad played all seven Tests, a forceful, sometimes disruptive character, desperate to play another Ashes summer just as his role begins to narrow; and in the center right at the start of this delicate thing.

From that potentially dangerous start, the handling of Broad has been seriously impressive: from convincing him of his vital importance to the new era in the unwanted role of First Amendment Stuart; to captain some really fine, match-turning spells of bowling; in the sense that Broad’s theatricality, the big ego presence in this newly constructed England team, has become an endearing form of comedy.

Broad gave a brilliant interview at the Oval, an interview that was basically an advertisement for Stuart Broad, ranging across topics as diverse as how vital he personally is to this new era, (“It’s been very powerful”) , to speak up his own. new tactical role, bowling fuller, not protecting his figures, trying to get wickets, which thought that was simply what he has been desperate to do all along. This is, as management theorists would say, great buy-in.

At the end of this, there will be a temptation to lump Broad, as always, with James Anderson, to see another defiant twin Branderson summer, something that may have benefited Broad to some extent. In reality, they are quite different. Bred has been very good for a very long time.

Anderson, on the other hand, is a cricketing genius and a true hall-of-famer. And it really has been his summer. Just look at the numbers. In six Tests, Anderson has 27 wickets at 17.6, sublime in every spell, a master of his craft. Broad has 29 off 27 in one more game, which is pretty good, although home summers are at a premium and nobody out there can strike. Stokes has 18 in 25. Ollie Robinson and Matt Potts, who like Broad also played seven Tests together, have 32 in 23. “If it was the Ashes tomorrow and David Warner opens, I think I would open the bowling.” Broad offered at the end of the Oval Test. And while this is a good nudge theory, good brand reminders – Ashes, Warner, big moments, I’m Stuart Broad – it’s not correct either.

Robinson’s initial selection had always seemed to be part of a long-term de-Broadification of the Test team, although in many ways they are very different – Robinson a kind of Ginsters and Lucozade man, a specialist in the fire escape kind of vibe, Broad rigid fit and focused . But Robinson has also been superbly guided by Stokes and McCullum, told what to do, made to feel grown-up while doing it and given the chance to show what a wonderfully skilled, tactically astute bowler he is.

It is in the field that teams are really made, and where they can also fray. Merging those needs and interests, creating a decisive attack out of these aging Lions plus Jack Leach, who, not to forget, took a home Test ten this summer, has been hugely impressive.

Of course, this needs to be seen in the context of an undercooked South African batting line-up plus some very practical home conditions. But Stokes has also been tactically very good and miles ahead of his predecessor in terms of bowling changes, fielding and generally keeping the energy high and his players happy.

At which point back to Ben and Baz, and the question of happiness, which is significant in other ways. McCullum said something interesting in his own TV interview after the match. Asked about his approach, he talked a bit about enjoyment: how it first draws us into sport; and how it goes. It is the catch-22 of professionalism. Play it because you love it.

So keep playing even if you hate it.

McCullum has tried to bring back enjoyment. This is both a good team move and also a profound point about Test cricket, which this England group often talks about preserving and uplifting. What is Test cricket’s USP? What does it have? Not easy income streams or a time slot for the casual viewer.

But Test cricket has something that cannot be synthesized, a deep well of slow-burning devotion among players and spectators, a knack for creating longer stories and a kind of love for the sport and its rhythms that lies outside the current franchise beat.

Does anyone really love watching treadmill cricket? Is it bathed in golden light? Are players really gripped by this outside of the IPL? Players will go where the money is. But money and an audience are also there in the longer form. And Test cricket alone can offer these other emotions, this other kind of spectacle. Regardless of the detailed commercial strategy, Ben and Baz’s summer has shown that this sense of life is still there.