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The Evolution of a Movement can be characterized by distinct phases.

1. The Grand Vision

A dominant personality or coaches propose a new and transcendent idea offering a panacea for disconnected individuals.

So here we are. Preparations are underway to challenge the establishment overseas. The gunships are circling. Smoke is rising from the out-houses. One individual, naked, anxious, the slogan POSITIVE INTENT written on his body as a symbol, has emerged from the field and is being led away under a blanket towards an inconclusive loan stint in county cricket.

Do you recall the early days, when the world was still young? The days of Bazball 1.0, of Bazball without brains.

2. Initial Adoration

Cult leaders promise a reboot, hope for a future, support, salvation within a community with shared faith in the method.

What did it represent at first? Just men on a balcony basking in glory. Tattoos. Strength. Focus. Peak performance vibes. Oh sure, The team insist it’s not a real term, ironically because if it doesn’t exist, what was that spectacle?

However, everyone understands the concept. It’s Harry Brook executing a stroke so depraved it has to be pixelated. It’s the excitement of Ben Stokes in ultimate mode, an expression conveying: pensive Nordic god, beard made of wood, natural look, genuinely raw you half-expect to notice and see him playing on the ground stripped to the waist holding a fish.

It’s the batsman still being allowed to talk in press conferences, out there looking like a happy little woodland creature formally attired, expressing thoughts like we are actively deconstructing the orange. Certainly, the vibe, initially, was only good energy.

3. The Growth Phase

Building period. Togetherness strengthened through repetition of mantras. These ideas can appear contradictory as a loyalty check.

Is it just me? The backlash, the outrage, the feeling of letdown post-defeat seems too strong, overdone. The performance was poor in Perth, as is typical there. They were savaged defensively for a couple of hours as plans unraveled, manipulated by the opponent batting like England but better, responsive to the situation, a man playing with a kind of light around him.

Currently, we see the attacks, the anger, the sense of English Test cricket as a failure. The feeling seems to be that defeat must be total, they should be dismantled, to be purged, obliterated, overwhelmed via traditional methods of the pace attack, the low-fi orthodoxies of the bowler, out there celebrating his wickets humbly like he’s just been given a pleasant gift. What will this do to them?

4. Hate Bonding

Issues emerge from failures in the plan. But the cult cannot admit errors. It turns to hatred of the outside world.

The fact remains, half a week out the next match, we are at an intriguing moment in the story of this movement. Victory is possible overseas through aggressive play. Alternatively, defeat could come swiftly. In case of defeat it seems we really might be entering the death cult phase.

Prior to that, a couple of points to note about this. In the past, during the initial excitement, of optimism and energy, I wrote an article labeling it a movement. There was outrage, which proved the point as it’s known how to confirm lack of cult status is if supporters send hundreds of furiously one-eyed messages denying scrutiny of its truths.

Recent events recently are fascinating. It seems that hating Bazball is now the trend. We have a uniformly angry internet, disappointed commentators, images of frustrated travelling fans cheated out of three days of cricket, reminiscent of investors demanding recourse.

Meanwhile, we have the wider backdrop of the host’s complex more culturally hard-wired exasperation with the aggressive tourists, claiming, the methods you value and have developed as one way of separating yourself from the opposition, it’s just a joke ultimately.

This is the core issue. Everything is a cult. The style was a trend as the game has its own culture. In fact, the sport in England is closed, a group, an elite gathering, a restricted environment with a long history of opaque and ritualistic cult history defining it. It has long been a place where power and access are hoarded. It’s the colonial game of the nation, the early image-makers. And guess what, the nation has its own culture, a series of esoteric hierarchies, a royal family remains.

The team have been enclosed in this environment since childhood. In trying to escape from it, to create a less brutal environment, they are simply replicating their own experience, building another enclosure, a limited community, however with a new team and a mentor encouraging individuality as long as yourself is quite a lot like myself.

Focus on the moment. Confront risks. But no matter how fast and far you run, you remain stuck.

With this mind, it is perhaps the moment to have some sympathy for Bazball, to recognize its positives, that are numerous. How to define it? Creating a sense of freedom. Challenging orthodoxies. Batting aggressively|Attacking with