The cult of Bazball is dead – and Ben Stokes’s latest comments prove it

Ben Stokes has indicated fans should expect a different style of play from England’s Test team this summer following last winter’s Ashes humiliation in Australia.

That 4-1 defeat led many to conclude that the free-wheeling, aggressive Bazball approach launched when coach Brendon McCullum took over in 2022 was dead.

The words from England’s Test captain during an in-house interview with the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) seemed to confirm that was indeed the case.

“I’m very confident in mine and Brendon’s ability to be able to work together, because we’ve done it for such a long period of time now,” Stokes told ECB.co.uk.

“But work together in a slightly different way. The main point of me and Brendon is our alignment towards winning things and making this team as good as they can be. That’s always been the thing since we started.

“It might just look a little bit different now to how that operates – on the back of four years working together. We still want to win everything, and we still want to give the guys the best chance that they possibly can of being as good as they can be.”

This appears to contradict, at least in part, what Rob Key, England’s managing director of men’s cricket, said last month at a media appearance at Lord’s when the ECB justified why nobody would be sacked despite the abject failure in Australia.

“What we’ve really all agreed on now is that we don’t want a massive change of style,” Key said. “We don’t want a change of philosophy so you’re asking Brendon McCullum to be someone completely different. Because as a leader, if you’re not authentic you’re done.”

To the dismay of many fans, McCullum managed to survive in his role following a post-Ashes review amid evidence that his relationship with Stokes had become strained in Australia.

Both appeared to clash over the way they wanted the team to play once things started going wrong in the Ashes, with the captain urging his team to show fight and dig in while the coach was frustrated his players appeared to abandon their long-held approach and got ever-more defensive when the going got tough in the heat of Ashes battle.

Key, speaking in that media appearance at Lord’s, denied this, saying: “There’s been no big argument, no big bust-up.”

Now Stokes has had his say, articulating why he believes his working relationship with McCullum is a healthy one as the pair plot the path to next summer’s home Ashes, when England will attempt to beat Australia in a series for the first time since 2015. “If anyone thinks you’re always going to agree on everything, then it’s just impossible,” he said. “To me, that isn’t a healthy environment for sport, in particular, where everyone just says yes to the person up there. You need debate. You need discussions. Then you end up getting to the place you both want to end up.

“As similar as me and Brendon are, we’re also dissimilar in other areas. But the thing we both want is to be as successful as we possibly can. How we get to being successful might be the same here, but slightly differs here – but we will always end up in the same place by having these discussions. We agree 95 per cent of the time on things. Agreeing on every single thing, that’s just impossible. Saying we weren’t aligned, I think, is a massive overstatement.

“I just couldn’t imagine doing what we were trying to do with anyone else. We’re both very proud men. We put a lot of our heart and soul into this job. Brendon certainly has for the four years he’s done it so far, and hopefully we’ll still be together at the end of 2027, winning what we want to win.”

This is all very different from Stokes’ emotional social media rallying cry last month, when he had posted: “Baz, Rob and myself have the passion and desire to take this team forward. We are going to give you everything we have. We know we made mistakes along the way and we have learnt from those mistakes. You learn more from failure than success.

“I have learnt a lot about myself but the most important thing that I want the fans to know is that … I F*****G love cricket, I F*****G love this team, I F*****G love being England captain and I have got so much more to give to this role and I’m so happy that I get to do it with Baz and Rob.”

What seems obvious is that England are keen to draw a line under an apocalyptic winter so they can face the future with confidence.

It is results, though, not words, that can only make that possible.