Life is for grabbing by the Bazballs

England may have lost the Ashes but we could all do with more of their on-the-front-foot, fearless self-belief

- Frank Skinner

The renowned opera singer Maria Callas said that the way to greatness was to treat every performance as if it were a rehearsal.

This is harder than it sounds. I once spent a happy day in rehearsals for a TV show, with a presenter who was dazzlingly funny and inventive throughout. Just as the cameras were about to roll, however, I watched her tighten. The dazzle dimmed as she, perhaps subconsciously, switched to a more polished professional mode. She did a good job that night, but not the great one I knew she was capable of.

This brings me to the England men’s cricket team. They completed their five-match Test series in Australia last Thursday morning, losing by four games to one. The mass condemnation is already verging on the hysterical, but I come to praise England, not to bury them. I understand if you're not interested in cricket but don’t stop reading just yet. This is the story of a revolution.

Briefly, for the uninitiated, back in 2022, this England team, under their new head coach, Brendon “Baz” McCullum, very deliberately adopted a mindset based largely on self-belief and endeavour. Baz and his new captain, Ben Stokes, set about rewriting how Test match cricket could and should be played. Shorter forms of the game, played with a white ball instead of the traditional red, imposed - with the immediacy of time-constraints - a swashbuckling, risk-taking style that was, well, entertaining.