Bazball’s revels are now ended, and this week English cricket enters a brave new world after the retirement of captain Ben Stokes and defenestration of head coach Brendan McCullum. Well, actually, it’s not all that brave, nor particularly new – Joe Root returning as skipper; recalls for Dan Lawrence and Ollie Pope for the Test series against Pakistan. And overseeing it all is another New Zealander in Stephen Fleming; though McCullum does assure us that his former international team-mate is ‘like me only better’. 

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 Of course, one might argue that reinvention isn’t necessarily hard. Fleming’s tenure started in a blaze of glory in that heady summer of 2022 when all things – enormous run chases at least – seemed possible. The shackles of the previous regime (when Root was captain) were thrown off as England won 11 of the former New Zealand captain’s first 13 Tests in charge. But it wasn’t just the results, it was the sheer nonchalance – and no little skill – with which they were achieved. Indeed, English cricket’s efforts to reinvent itself, and apparently the Test game in general, were unquestionably wonderful for a while. 

 Then they became simply questionable. Hubris seemed to set in, and like Ernest Hemingway’s bankruptcy, the end came gradually, then........

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