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The Life Cycle of a Phenomenon is often defined by specific steps.

1. The Big Idea

An inspiring figure or coaches present a new and transcendent idea offering a panacea for disconnected individuals.

So here we are. Preparations are underway to challenge the establishment down in Brisbane. The gunships are circling. Signs of trouble appear from the sidelines. An isolated player, naked, nervous, the slogan POSITIVE INTENT written on his body as a statement, has come staggering through the lines and is taken aside in secrecy towards an inconclusive loan stint at Derbyshire.

Do you ever miss the start, when optimism reigned? The days of Bazball 1.0, of Bazball without brains.

2. Initial Adoration

Team architects promise a fresh beginning, optimism ahead, love, success together who all believe in the method.

What was this thing at first? Players celebrating feeling good. Tattoos. Strength. Determination. Confident masculinity. Oh sure, The team will claim they don’t use the label, ironically because if it doesn’t exist, what exactly did I just watch?

However, everyone understands the concept. It’s the player attempting a move so unconventional it has to be pixelated. It’s the excitement of the captain in his final form, a look that says: thoughtful warrior, rugged appearance, hair woven from beaver hide, genuinely raw you half-expect to glance over and find him positioned on the ground bare-chested holding a fish.

It’s the batsman continuing to have permission addressing the media, out there looking like a joyful figure smartly dressed, uttering phrases such as we’re breaking down traditions. And yes, the energy, initially, was only good energy.

3. A New Life

Growth phase. Cohesion maintained through repetition of key phrases. These principles are often illogical as a loyalty check.

Does anyone else feel? The reaction, the fury, the disappointment following the initial loss feels overblown, too much. The performance was poor during the match, as they often do in Australia. They were savaged while bowling during a brief period as the bowling and captaincy fell apart, manipulated by Travis Head batting like England but better, responsive to the situation, a performer excelling with a kind of light around him.

Currently, we see the attacks, the anger, the view of the sport as a failure. The consensus is that defeat must be total, they need to lose righteously, to be cleansed, obliterated, overwhelmed through sheer skill of Mitchell Starc’s movements, the low-fi orthodoxies of the bowler, seen enjoying successes with a bashful smile as if receiving a pleasant gift. How will they respond?

4. Hate Bonding

Challenges surface from failures in the plan. However, faults are ignored. It starts to feed on hostility externally.

Ultimately, approaching the upcoming game, we have now reached a critical juncture in the journey of this thing. England could quite easily win overseas with bold tactics. Alternatively, they could lose just as quickly. And if they do lose it feels like we may see the death cult phase.

Prior to that, a couple of points to consider about this. More than two years ago, during the initial excitement, of optimism and energy, I wrote an article calling it a phenomenon. Criticism followed, which was helpful because everyone knows the best way of proving that it’s not a closed group is when its acolytes respond with anger objecting to the questioning of the philosophy.

Recent events in the last few days are fascinating. Opposition to the style is now the trend. Social media is furious, critical analysts, shots of angry middle-aged followers overseas missing out on play, like a room full of people wanting fairness.

Meanwhile, there is the broader context of the host’s complex deep-seated frustration towards the unconventional visitors, out there saying, the methods you value and have fostered and nurtured to distinguish yourselves culturally from us, well, it’s all a bit of a gag in the end old boy.

And this is the real point. All movements are similar. The style was a trend because cricket is a cult. Or rather, the sport in England is closed, a circle, a private event, a restricted environment with two hundred years of opaque and ritualistic cult history defining it. It has long been a place where power and access are hoarded. It’s the colonial game of the British, the original sports washers. And surprisingly, the country is a phenomenon, a series of esoteric hierarchies, a monarchy still exists.

The team have been sealed up within this world for years. In trying to escape from it, to build a better atmosphere, they are simply replicating their own experience, building another enclosure, an exclusive group, however with 15 cool guys and a mentor encouraging individuality as long as yourself is quite a lot like myself.

Stay present. Embrace challenges. However much you change, things stay similar.

Reflecting on this, it might be appropriate to offer compassion for the approach, to recognize its positives, which are significant. What is Bazball? Promoting liberation. Challenging orthodoxies. Batting aggressively|Attacking with