{"id":19222,"date":"2024-11-27T14:36:04","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T14:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=19222"},"modified":"2024-11-27T14:36:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T14:36:04","slug":"england-arrive-at-judgement-day-for-bazball-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=19222","title":{"rendered":"'England arrive at judgement day for Bazball'"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In Christchurch, the city of his birth, Stokes is born again. Physically fit and back to his ebullient self. <\/p>\n

As usual, he politely fends off suggestions that this is a homecoming – “I’m English” – though concedes it is special to be surrounded by so many members of his family.<\/p>\n

Merivale Papanui, the club where a young Stokes played his earliest cricket, is about a 15-minute drive from Hagley Oval. And Stokes has been to see his namesake, a horse owned by McCullum, finish third at Riccarton Park.<\/p>\n

As Stokes spoke on Tuesday, he was bullish in his explanation of England’s latest rabbit out of the hat, the selection of Jacob Bethell to bat at number three.<\/p>\n

Aged 21, the left-hander won’t be the youngest England debutant to bat at number three in a Test. That distinction goes to Rehan Ahmed, who wandered out as the nighthawk as an 18-year-old in Karachi two years ago. At least Ahmed had a first-class hundred to his name.<\/p>\n

“We do know what we’re doing,” said Stokes, who acknowledged his team will be judged on results. Still, he went back to a favourite mantra of being “all about the process”.<\/p>\n

Right now, the process is coming into question. There is so much to be said for England’s relaxed attitude. Ben Duckett has discovered a career that otherwise looked dead, newbies like Gus Atkinson and Jamie Smith have thrived.<\/p>\n

But Test cricket is also about details. Some of the best England teams of the recent past – ones led by Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan, and again by Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss – were attentive to the small things that the current team overlook.<\/p>\n

After the Shoaib Bashir visa row in India, no-one checked Ahmed’s was fit for multiple entries and he almost didn’t get back into the country. In the summer, England asked middle-order batter Dan Lawrence to open and dropped him when he failed. They still don’t have a reserve opener.<\/p>\n

It was ludicrous to come to New Zealand with three frontline spinners and no back-up keeper, yet England have been left disorientated by the injury to Jordan Cox. Durham’s Ollie Robinson is due to come as cover once he gets his passport renewed – another example of disorganisation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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Source: <\/em> www.bbc.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Christchurch, the city of his birth, Stokes is born again. Physically fit and back to his ebullient self. As usual, he politely fends off suggestions that this is a homecoming – “I’m English” – though concedes it is special to be surrounded by so many members of his family. Merivale Papanui, the club where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}