Former Australia player Kerry O’Keeffe has claimed that Bazball was inspired by the tragic passing of Phillip Hughes in 2014.
The Bazball has taken the world by storm. The term has been coined to describe England’s new aggressive approach in Test cricket. It all began in 2022 summer when Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes took charge of the team as the head coach and captain respectively. Baz is derived from Brendon McCullum’s long standing nickname.
Although England suffered a narrow loss in the first Ashes Test earlier this week, the Bazball approach has been highly effective for Stokes & Co. They are arguably the best Test team in the world in the last 12 months or so. And while cricketing world has been witnessing the new approach from last one year, Kerry O’Keefe believes that Philip Hughes’ tragic death in 2014 was the trigger point of this method.
Kerry O’Keefe highlights Philip Hughes’ tragic death as inspiration behind Bazball:
On 27 November 2014, Philip Hughes passed away at the age of 25 after being struck on the neck by a ball during a Sheffield Shield match two days earlier. The cricketing world including Brendon McCullum was completely shook by the tragedy. Years later during an interview with SEN in 2019, McCullum had said Hughes’s death was a ‘moment that I’ll remember for the rest of my life’.
“Just the fact that a player playing cricket could pass away in those circumstances just made us all realise that the game can be life or death,” McCullum said.
“I think that transferred into a happy-go-lucky kind of approach with our cricket.”
And O’Keeffe believes that McCullum’s realisation after Hughes’s death planted the early seeds of Bazball.
“Look, I lay it (Bazball) at the feet of Brendon McCullum,” O’Keeffe told Fox Sports.
“And I lay it also, and may he rest in peace, Phillip Hughes. Because that was a defining moment in Brendon McCullum’s career.
“When Phillip Hughes died on the pitch, it was 2014, Brendon McCullum was captaining New Zealand. He said we are going to play without care, without consequence, because we are going to play every day as if it’s our last and to hell with judgment.
“Two years later, he scored the fastest Test century in the history of the game, 54 balls against Australia. Bazball is a consequence of Phillip Hughes’ passing.
If you detach from consequence and you don’t feel judged, you play freely. That’s what this England side is doing at the moment and they’re doing it so well. The seed was germinated through the passing of Phillip Hughes,” he added.
McCullum and Stokes have vowed to play the same style of cricket in the remainder of the Ashes despite the defeat. The second Test is scheduled to be played at the Lord’s from June 28.