England’s former Twenty20 World Cup-winning captain Paul Collingwood, now assistant to coach Brendon McCullum, declared on Saturday that Test cricket may not survive without the sort of entertainment his side’s ‘Bazball’ approach is bringing to the game.
Suggesting their daring ethos meant more than mere results, it was striking that Collingwood’s bullish comments should come at the end of a second day of the opening Ashes Test at Edgbaston in which Australia had shown a more studied ‘traditional’ approach could be just as effective.
With Australia just 82 runs adrift of England’s manic first-day 8(dec)-393 with five wickets standing and centurion Usman Khawaja not out, Collingwood still had no qualms in effectively painting the home side as the only ones pushing the boundaries of the five-day game.
“We have said right from the start we are trying to make Test cricket a lot more entertaining,” said Collingwood, who captained England to a World Cup triumph in the game’s shortest format in 2010.
“If we don’t do that, then Test cricket might not survive.
“Our vision as a Test team is far greater than results.
“Australia can go about it how they want to go about it, but we’ll stick to our plans and we’re happy with how we did it over the first two days.
“We have pretty aggressive fields, we try not to allow them to rotate the strike and try to put them under pressure in that way and find different ways to take wickets.
“We try and focus on what we do, how we go about the game.”
Collingwood felt the evenly fought first two days had left England in a “magnificent position”.
“80-odd runs (ahead), that wicket isn’t going to get any better while it goes on,” he said, reflecting on how England had flourished in the later stages of Tests in their winter series in Pakistan.
“We’ve come up against some slow wickets in places like Pakistan and managed to find a way to take 20 wickets.
“For our bowling unit to take 20 wickets on all surfaces has been one of our strengths.”
Pat Cummins’ defensive field settings early on the opening day had surprised Collingwood, who reckoned it was testament to England’s extraordinary last 12 months.
“I didn’t expect it,” he said.
“But the aggression we’ve shown, the amount of boundaries we have scored, and the run-rates we keep achieving, we keep pushing the boundaries.
“Oppositions are trying to find ways to stem the flow, and that was Australia’s choice on the first day.”
Asked if he felt Australia were more wary of Ben Stokes’ side than vice-versa, Collingwood said: “I don’t know. We focus on how we play. Once you start worrying about how the opposition are thinking you take that away from your own game.
“We continue to keep pushing the boundaries, keep seeing how far we can go.
“We don’t have a ceiling, so we keep encouraging the guys to keep pushing the boundaries and making it entertaining.
“Some of the stuff we saw yesterday was truly special. I am sure the guys will keep playing some ridiculous stuff.”