Opinion Express View: Rising from Ashes

Thirteen tempestuous match-days spread across three weeks in England have enlivened Test cricket, breathing life into a supposedly dying format. The three Tests — England won the latest at Leeds but trail Australia 2-1 in a contest of narrow margins — have gripped the audience, as only Test cricket can. But for sloppy fielding, everything has been top-notch — batting of the highest quality under challenging conditions, bowling of utmost cunning and craft, a wide range of tactics by exemplary leaders, besides the usual coating of scandals and sprinkling of melodrama. That this series brims with the potential to exceed the thrills of the 2005 version, arguably the greatest ever battle, says much about how engrossing the contest has been.

It was the series the format desperately needed in the T20 milieu to stay relevant. Rare have been the instances where a Test has lasted all five days, or had the audience hooked to their seats till the last sequence of action. The unputdownable nature of the series is indebted to Bazball, the radical ideology of playing cricket in the most aggressive fashion, refuting some of the well-worn fundamentals of the game, and redefining the way it is played and perceived. At the core of it is simplicity, cricket reduced to the fundamentals, about fostering an environment to express one’s talent naturally and fully.

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Ten more days of cricket remain, 10 more days replete with infinite possibilities and narratives, legacies and regrets. Only once has either of the teams overturned a 2-0 deficit to win an Ashes, which occurred way back in 1936, and it required 651 runs from the blade of Donald Bradman. It would call for a monumental effort to repeat the feat, but if any team is not weighed down by the burden of history, if any team could imagine the impossible, it would be the Bazball-drunk brigade of Stokes. Then, whatever be the eventual outcome of the series, Test cricket would win.