Something remarkable has been happening in cricket just lately.
If that sentence is enough to make you scroll on, hold on.
As an illustratuion, if this was football Gareth Southgate’s team would take to the field with the goalkeeper as striker in a 2-7-1 formation with Harry Kane as centre half.
Then they’d revert to something else.
England are playing Australia in The Ashes. They are following a new philosophy dubbed ‘Bazball’ after their coach Brendan McCullen.
In short, it is to do things differently and by doing so sew doubt in the opposition. Commentators have observed that the prime reasn for this is to sew chaos.
Australian batsman Usman Khawaja was at the crease and had scored a century. Bazball saw the England skipper Ben Stokes arrange six cricketers in a line.
While the batsman was wiondering why the hell this was happening he got clean bowled.
On the first day of Day 4, England batsman Joe Root confounded tradition by playing a reverse sweep from the first ball. This never happens. The expectation is to be cagey and play defensive.
The response in the Test Match Special commentary box was shock.
What’s the lesson?
Don’t do the routine.
Try something unexpected.