🔗 Share this article

The Life Cycle of a Movement tends to be characterized by clear stages.

1. The Core Concept

A dominant personality or leaders present a new and transcendent idea pledging a cure for alienated and vulnerable people.

Thus we find ourselves. Preparations are underway to challenge the establishment in Australia. Pressure is mounting. Signs of trouble appear from the out-houses. One individual, vulnerable, anxious, the words HIGH RELEASE POINT displayed prominently as a statement, has stumbled into view and is being led away in secrecy to a different team at Derbyshire.

Do you recall the beginning, when the world was still young? The era of early Bazball, of Bazball without brains.

2. The Honeymoon Phase

Cult leaders promise a fresh beginning, hope for a future, support, success within a community who all believe in the big idea.

What did it represent at first? Just men on a balcony enjoying success. Body art. Forearms. Jawlines. Confident masculinity. Oh sure, England’s players insist it’s not a real term, amusingly as it’s denied, what was that spectacle?

However, everyone understands its essence. It’s the batsman executing a stroke so unconventional it has to be pixelated. It’s the adrenaline of Ben Stokes in his final form, a look that says: focused titan, rugged appearance, hair woven from beaver hide, genuinely raw you wouldn’t be surprised to glance over and find him positioned in the field bare-chested and cradling a wild salmon.

It’s the opener often seen speaking publicly, resembling a happy little woodland creature smartly dressed, expressing thoughts like we are actively deconstructing the orange. Indeed, the atmosphere, initially, was entirely positive.

3. A New Life

Growth phase. Togetherness strengthened via memorization of mantras. These ideas are often illogical as a loyalty check.

Is it just me? The backlash, the fury, the sense of betrayal after the first Ashes Test defeat feels overblown, too much. The performance was poor on the field, as they often do in Australia. They were savaged in the field for a couple of hours as plans unraveled, outplayed by the opponent batting like England but better, adaptive to conditions, a performer excelling with a kind of light around him.

And now we have this the pile-on, the anger, the sense of English Test cricket as a disgrace. The feeling seems to be that defeat must be total, they need to lose righteously, to be cleansed, obliterated, destroyed through sheer skill of Mitchell Starc’s movements, the conventional tactics of the veteran, out there celebrating successes with a bashful smile like he’s just been given a pleasant gift. What will this do to them?

4. The Backlash Phase

Problems arise from failures in the plan. Yet, mistakes are denied. It begins to thrive on hatred of the outside world.

Ultimately, a few days before from the second Test, we have now reached an intriguing moment in the story of this movement. They might succeed overseas in a blur of adrenal disruption. More likely, they could lose just as quickly. In case of defeat it seems we could be witnessing the death cult phase.

Prior to that, a couple of points to consider on the topic. More than two years ago, during the initial excitement, of passion and hope, I wrote an article suggesting Bazball was a cult. There was outrage, which was helpful as it’s known the best way of proving that it’s not a closed group is if supporters react defensively rejecting criticism of the beliefs.

The developments lately are equally notable. It seems that hating Bazball is now the trend. Social media is furious, angry English pundits, images of frustrated supporters abroad disappointed by the short match, similar to people wanting fairness.

Meanwhile, exists the larger scene of Australia’s more nuanced ingrained annoyance at these weirdly passive-aggressive buccaneers, out there saying, your cherished traditions and have honed as one way of separating yourself culturally from us, well, it’s all a bit of a gag ultimately.

This is the core issue. Everything is a cult. Bazball was a cult because cricket is a cult. Or rather, the team has long been exclusive, a circle, a private event, a closed world with centuries of opaque and ritualistic cult history behind it. This has always been where entry is limited. It’s the colonial game of the British, the original sports washers. And guess what, the nation has its own culture, a system of unknown levels, a place that literally still has a king.

The team have been sealed up within this world for years. Attempting to break free, to create a less brutal environment, they are mirroring their upbringing, building another enclosure, an exclusive group, but doing it this time with a new team and a mentor promoting authenticity as long as yourself is quite a lot like myself.

Live where your feet are. Confront risks. Despite efforts, you remain stuck.

Reflecting on this, now is the time to have some sympathy for the approach, to recognize its positives, that are numerous. How to define it? Creating a sense of freedom. Challenging orthodoxies. Batting aggressively|Attacking with