HYDERABAD: There was Joe Root’s unbeaten century in a chase of 279 versus New Zealand in the early days. There was that day-night Test in New Zealand when their bowlers embraced the twilight, twice. There was hunting down India’s 378 in the rearranged fifth Test. There was the craziness of scoring 500 inside a day before the team collectively willed themselves to win in Rawalpindi on a highway of a strip. There was Chris Woakes and Mark Wood engineering a nervy unbeaten stand to halve the deficit in last year’s Ashes… suffice to say Ben Stokes already had quite the catalog of wins as Test captain since taking over a broken, lifeless and empty outfit in 2022.
But nothing has quite matched what they have managed to do over the last four days in Hyderabad. Even before they had come to these shores, Bazball, many had maintained, wouldn’t work in India. They had no chance against two of the ATGs, Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin. It definitely wouldn’t work on Indian pitches. Those noises were exacerbated after the hosts had piled on a first-innings lead of 190. ‘Told you so’ was the prevailing sentiment.
So it wasn’t a surprise when Ben Stokes, who has now led England to a win in 14 of 18 Tests since becoming a full-time captain, hailed this win as the best of his tenure.
“This is definitely the No. 1 win since I have been captain,” Stokes said in the post-match press conference. “Considering where we are and who we were playing against, the position we found ourselves going into our second innings, I feel this is our best since I’ve been captain; our greatest triumph.”
Two of the main catalysts of the victory were Ollie Pope and Tom Hartley. One of them made a match-shifting 198 while the latter, a debutant, entered into the record books with a seven-fer.
To really get to the heart of Bazball, it’s important to know where Pope got his freedom from and how Hartley turned it around after a baptism of fire on the opening day (his first ball went for six and he finished with figures of none for 63 after nine overs).
