Playing on and off the field
Ollie Robinson is offering a lot of entertainment off the field.
I don't usually follow the Ashes, but this year there is subtext, and I am all for the drama. While England batters were playing Bszball on the pitch in the gaps when Usman Khawaja was not batting (the Australian opener is now the thirteenth in Test cricket and the second Australian to bat in all five days of a Test match), Ollie Robinson was playing Bazball in press conferences.
The England quick had a lot to say. He made fun of Australia’s tail. “We’ve said once we get past (Pat) Cummins, we feel like they’ve got three number 11s (in Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland and Josh Hazelwood).” But, there was some sting in that tail. The sledge backfired when Australia’s tail led the visitors to a two-wicket win.
Now, Robinson has a Wisden column for the duration of the Ashes - which Nasser Hussein doesn't think is such a great idea. "(If I was captain) I might be having a word with the media guy and saying I'm hearing too much from Ollie Robinson off the field... I don't want to be hearing about Ollie Robinson off the field, so can we just keep him away from the press just for the next four Ashes games as it builds through the series and it becomes the centre of attention," Hussein said.
Luckily, that has not happened, and Robinson has an Ashes column. I am enjoying the theatre he is creating. This should be fun because Robinson will likely maintain his tone the same. I am half-convinced Robinson is the designated pot stirrer. He has taken on a role Clive Lloyd played so well in the 1980s.
During the West Indies' 1983 tour of India, Clive Lloyd reportedly used a local daily newspaper to vent over poor umpiring decisions. Lloyd wrote stinging criticism of the Indian umpires, whom he accused of bias and favouritism, in his Captain's Column daily. Soon the rattled umpires were blatantly giving decisions in favour of WI. Early signs show that Robinson is in place to get into the minds of the Australians the same way Lloyd got into the umpires' heads.
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As he did during the first Ashes test, Robinson took a dig at Pat Cummins’ tactics and invited, goaded, Australia to join the Bazball party.
"We were surprised by how defensive Australia were and how unwilling they were to go toe-to-toe with us. We were surprised to see Australia so defensive from ball one. You just don't see the Australians cautious and on the back foot like that. As soon as we saw the field for that first over, we felt like we had a hold on them," he wrote.
A little later in the piece, he adds, "Of course it sounds weird because they won it, but I think if they're honest, Australia will look at themselves and realise they need to change their approach to keep up with how we're going to play. If there's any movement in the pitch at Lord's, the way we're playing compared to them is going to benefit us hugely."
Robinson took things a step further and made it sound like England scored a moral win because they played entertaining cricket, while Australia chose a conservative approach and won.
"It's about more than just winning a Test match. Because, at the end of the day, stats are forgotten. It's more than that. We're trying to create memories and be that team that everyone still speaks about in 20-30 years' time," Robinson wrote.
Of course, Robinson wants to win matches. England wants to win games. No one, besides the Washington Generals, plays to lose. The Washington Generals are the Harlem Globetrotters' whipping boys. They are paid to entertain the crowd and lose to the Globetrotters. Against the Globetrotters, the Generals lose on every surface known to mankind. They lose on indoor and outdoor basketball courts, ships and aircraft carriers, prisons and on the back of trucks.
They also lose under different names like the Boston Shamrocks, the Atlantic City Seagulls, the Baltimore Rockets, the Chicago Demons, the New Jersey Reds, the New York Nationals, or an all-encompassing name of losers: The International All-Stars.
The Generals are responsible for playing the stooge and making the Globetrotters look like the world's best basketball team. The Generals take on the Globetrotters each night to entertain audiences as much as possible.
The England Test team is not the Washington Generals or its aliases. The England Test team also wants to win the Ashes badly. If anything, Bazball as a philosophy is all about victory, batting the opposition out of the contest and pushing for victory at all costs.
Maybe this is what people like Geoffrey Boycott don’t understand about Bazball. A day before Robinson’s article was published, Geoffrey Boycott left no prisoners with his Daily Telegraph piece. “England have got carried away with Bazball and seem to think entertaining is more important than winning,” he wrote.
“They are in danger of letting hubris be their downfall or, quoting William Shakespeare in Hamlet, being hoist by one’s own petard. They are going to defeat themselves,” he said.
There have been concerns over the future of Test cricket. T20’s primacy cannot be ignored and nations outside the Big 3 have shrinking Test cricket calendars. In his article, Robinson used that to respond to Boycott, “We want to capture the imaginations of people. We want kids to grow up wanting to play Test cricket for England. I saw there were record viewing numbers for the match, which is pretty special, and shows that we’re going on the right lines.”
This drama, sometimes instigated by Robinson, is why I am paying attention to the Ashes this year.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS
