David Gower on Bazball, Bairstow, and the Ashes so far
17 Jul
Cricket
Guy Giles
The former England captain reflects on the first three Ashes Tests and looks ahead to Old Trafford.

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What have you made of the series as a whole so far?

It's been a fantastic series with a bit of everything. There’s been some brilliance, some human error,  lots of tension.

The clash between the two cricketing cultures, so-called ‘Bazball’ versus a more traditional approach to the game, and the 100-plus years of history between these two teams, all of that's come into play.

The honest analysis, which a lot of people would concur with, is that England could be 3-0 up, and equally so could Australia. The fact that it's 2-1 keeps it hanging by a thread.

How would you assess England's performances?

You've had things like the brilliance of Ben Stokes, who has led from the front as you'd expect. The explosion of that innings at Lord's was just awesome to watch.

We’ve also had Mark Wood's bowling at Headingley, which just emphasises something we've known forever, that genuine pace has the capacity to upset even the best batsmen. Mark at Leeds was just inspirational. A well-deserved man of the match.

There's also been human error. I'm a huge Jonny Bairstow fan. I've watched him through the ups and downs, batting in different positions, and have always empathised with him. Last year, of course, was his absolute peak. He was simply brilliant. England wanted the same again and they decided, with the balance of the team, to have him keep wicket, and it’s not gone as well as it could have done.

Last year, he could relax a bit and just play and make hundreds. This year, I'm sure he's feeling the pressure, but he's done it before. He's come back from being under pressure to make a point. And now would be a really good time to make a point emphatically.

What are your thoughts on ‘Bazball’?

The culture is brilliant. It allows them to play positive cricket, and the results of that have been seen over the past 12 months, even in this Ashes series. It’s the wrong score at the moment, but we've still seen the benefits of a positive mindset.

To create a culture in the dressing room where people are as relaxed as they'll probably ever be playing Test match cricket, that in itself is an extraordinary thing to have achieved.

Stokes is so vital. I've not seen anyone lead a cricket team with quite such panache for a long, long time. The ability to be relaxed with each and every one of his team, the ability to run with the good bits, accept the bad bits, and still come out with the same mantra. That in itself is a hell of a trick. The leadership has been outstanding.

Looking back at their tour of Pakistan, I played there when the expectation was games that could go on forever, draws that you couldn’t do anything about. The way they managed to manufacture three wins out of nothing was extraordinary.

I played in England teams where we scored at four an over, which was pretty rapid by the standards of the day. When you're going up to six, seven, eight an over, as they were in Pakistan, and keeping it going, it's amazing when you think about it.

What do you make of the way this positive approach has been applied in this series?

Us traditionalists will always say things like this, but I wish they’d been just that little bit smarter over the first two games of this series. For instance, absorbing the bouncer war at Lord's, rather than two or three holing out. Even at Edgbaston, people like Joe Root getting stumped by a mile. These are little things that are avoidable.

If you go back to a very different but recent era under Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, they looked very hard at what Strauss called the one-two percenters, little things that make a difference. If you added in the one-two percenters for those first two Test matches, we might be looking at a different scoreline.

How would you assess Australia’s performances?

Cummins is a very good leader. There are still debates about his tactical acuity, but you can’t deny his character, his ability to take people with him. The way he batted through to win the first Test match, there was a man determined to lead from the front at a crucial time. That could easily have gone the other way on a different day, but he led from the front in the same way that Stokes would have done.

He's also a fantastic bowler. His rhythm sets a fine example in leading the attack as well as leading the team.

Steve Smith has been in and out of form. He's one of the greats of the modern day, so to get him out a few times relatively cheaply has been a feather in England's cap.

The fact that Labuschagne is out of the runs and seemingly out of sorts has been good news as well, because at his peak he is very difficult to dismiss. You could question whether he’s out of form or whether he’s been pushed out of form by England's bowlers. England have bowled well at him and kept the pressure on.

Khawaja has played that serene, I'll-play-at-my-pace game, which was vital to Australia in that first Test match. It didn't matter whether he was not scoring at all, the fact that he hung in there was a very impressive effort from him. I'm a big Khawaja fan. He's not the most scintillating player, he's not one to blast it into the stands like others in this modern era, but he does a really, really good job.

Where do you stand on the debate around Bairstow's stumping at Lord’s?

I'm of the opinion that Jonny Bairstow, sadly, was casual and careless. If you just think about it for a moment, and I'm sure he would have thought about it constantly, the assumption he made was not an assumption you should make in the midst of an Ashes Test match.

Yes, the ball had gone into the keeper's hands, but that little tap of the toe as if to say, 'I'm in, I can do what I want now,' was naive, I'm afraid. All he had to do was just look behind him for a moment.

That's what we've always done in Test cricket, whether it's Bazball or any other era. If you're thinking straight as a batsman, you just look behind you. He would've seen the throw coming, he'd have dotted his bat in, and he'd have been absolutely fine. The fact that he went for a stroll straight away was a false assumption and a bad mistake.

As far as I'm concerned, Carey was just being sharp. There was nothing underhand about what Carey did – apart from the throw, which was spot on – it was just sharpness of thinking.

Cummins has been under pressure for not recalling Bairstow. But if he recalls Bairstow, what's the message? You can be as stupid as you like?

Some of my friends have said to me, 'Oh, you'd have called him back.' And I’m not sure I would have.

Why do you think the reaction afterwards was so strong?

First is the circumstance. Stokes was going strong and Bairstow, a potentially match-winning batsman, was at the crease. Had that partnership flourished, it could have really pushed the game to the absolute limits.

There was a full house, the best part of 30,000 people willing England on to win. And it just seemed like the wrong way to get a wicket at a crucial time.

Of course, people invoke the nebulous thing that is the spirit of cricket. I've seen sportsmanship prevail, I've seen sportsmanship being ignored, and I've seen bits in between. There was this wild assumption from around the ground, and crucially and shamefully from within the pavilion, that this was something akin to cheating. It's not cheating. 

There were three umpires involved, and Marais Erasmus did what he had to do, looked at the circumstances, applied the laws, and that was that.

Because of the emotions that the Ashes promote on and off the field, the atmosphere around the ground that day was such that it just spilled over.

I think Stuart Broad's remark, 'That's what you'll always be remembered for,' to Alex Carey, was Stuart at his combative best. He's got a point. It will be remembered, Bairstow will be remembered, Carey will be remembered. But I think with the passage of time and the cooling of emotions, people will start to consider it a bit more rationally.

What do you think of the decision to stick by Bairstow behind the stumps?

Ben Foakes is a much better keeper, for sure. The way he keeps wicket is actually a visual delight. But there's a tendency to make him into some sort of demigod as a keeper. The reality is that even Foakes will drop the odd ball. He'll do it beautifully, but he will drop the odd ball. Everyone is capable of mistakes.

We expect high standards at the highest level of the game, and in the febrile atmosphere of the Ashes, you want these moments to go the other way, but you’re allowed to make mistakes.

He’s not alone. Joe Root’s dropped catches at slip. Joe is already a saint and beloved by all, but even he drops catches at slip. Marsh at Headingley, just imagine. Had that catch been taken, that game would have looked infinitely different.

One thing I don't think we should do is pick out one man. This is a time to build him up and say it will get better.

You’ve got to remember, he's had a big injury. He's not going to admit any side effects, even minor, of that leg injury, but an elite sportsman wants every part of his body working to the absolute max. As a keeper, you've got split seconds to be balanced, to be ready to move, to react and move in the right direction. All these things depend on both legs operating at 100 per cent.

England have been accused of being too casual at times. What do you make of that claim?

As someone who spent most of his career being accused of being casual, sometimes in a good way, sometimes as a criticism, the one thing I know is that whatever it looks like, people playing Test cricket in an Ashes series have no time to be casual.

I dropped catches. As an England player, you're always trying, but you drop catches. It happens.

The allegation is not so much that they've been casual on the field, because that would be ridiculous and something which any team, any individual, would rebuff straight away. It's whether or not they've done enough catching prep, for instance, and I’m sure they have.

This culture they're playing in is more centred on creating that relaxed environment, which can be a very good thing. Relaxed confidence is a very good place to be.

How confident are you feeling ahead of the fourth Test?

I don't think anyone's entitled to be confident about anything in this series, the way things have gone. You can be optimistic, which I am. You can talk about momentum, which is a bit of a myth sometimes, but if you come from a game you've won, and you've got things in place which give you reasons to be confident as a team, then that is a very, very good starting point.

Old Trafford will be a good pitch, I would expect. The only worry I have about Old Trafford, in particular, is the weather. The forecast isn't great. If it happens to rain and we lose time, it might, unfortunately, make it harder to win the game.

But if the weather stays clear enough, if the attitude is strong enough, if the catches are taken, they've got a great chance.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if it was 2-2 going into that final game?

Do you think it's the right decision to bring Anderson back into the team at his home ground?

He's been off the pace. It's so obvious, from body language to some of the things that have been said. But Jimmy is a proud man with a wonderful record.

Sometimes it's just about that early ball that brings the edge, brings the catch, and changes the entire atmosphere. Jimmy will have every incentive with that new ball to make things happen at Old Trafford.

It's the fairy story that we all want. We want it to end well for Jimmy. He's earned it.

Moeen Ali looks set to bat at three again at Old Trafford. Who would you put in that position?

I would put Root there.

I'm a big fan of Moeen. I love the way he plays. Every now and again, I hear Jonathan Agnew on the radio comparing a Moeen Ali cover drive to one of mine, so I have a certain empathy with what he does and the way he plays.

My best days were at three, playing that same sort of way, but I'm not sure that Moeen is quite a number three.

I know he doesn't want to be, but Root could be. He is such a good player. I'd back him more than anyone at three. I know he’s not produced the amount of runs that he would have liked in the series so far, and he’s making mistakes outside the off stump, but to me, it would look more solid with him at three. He's got the ability to make it work.

It would also be a stunning thing for him to get a hundred at three, because then it settles down the middle order.

As a team, I think you bite the bullet for these two games, even if Joe isn't that keen to do it. Stokes could have a chat with him and say, 'You could win us the Ashes by batting it three.’ What more incentive do you need?

What does Root need to do to get back to making runs in this series?

If you look back at any of the great batsmen in history, everyone's had a bad run, whether that lasts a couple of games or much longer, and yet they come back and make runs.

What you will do with yourself if you're Joe is say, ‘Yes, there's a couple of instances where I've fed it to the slip cordon, but that's how I play. I average 50 in Test cricket, and I've got thousands of runs.'

People used to come to me saying, 'Why do you get caught at gully so often?' I'd say, ‘Because I've scored 5,000 runs there.' If I didn't play any of those shots, great, I'd be there all day, but I'd still be nought not out.

So, you have to work out the two things, how you're going to stay at the crease, and how you're going to make your runs. Joe has done that successfully for many, many years now. It’s about just isolating yourself in your own little bubble and backing yourself. Someone like Joe, with all his experience and ability, can do that.

Root has now been dismissed 10 times by Pat Cummins in his career. As a batter, how do you deal with a situation like that?

It’s tough. As a batsman, you’ll always have problems against a bowler of supreme quality like Cummins.

There are two ways of getting out. The more common one is that you make a mistake of judgement in that 0.4 seconds you have to decide what to do with a bat that’s just a few inches wide. The fact that batsmen hit the ball in the middle so often is almost a miracle of modern humanity, but most of the time, they will still look back and think they could have done something different.

But every now and again, someone will bowl you a ball that there’s actually nothing you can do about.

If you start to fret, if it gets into your head as an existential problem, and you think, ‘How do I bat against this bloke?’ then you’re in trouble. It’s the classic cliché of backing yourself and not worrying about the opposition. That’s what the best players do successfully.