After several blockbusters and a few flops, Bazball faces a moment of reckoning Premium

While Bazball has served England well, with only Australia having a better Test record over the last three years, it now confronts a stern challenge in 2025-26: five Tests against India and five in the Ashes.

After being dropped from England’s squad for the Test tour of the West Indies in 2022, Stuart Broad wrote in his column in Mail on Sunday about the state of his mind. “It hit me pretty hard,” conceded one half of England’s deadliest ever bowling duo (the other half, James Anderson, had also been dropped).

Broad admitted it affected his sleep. He was, however, assured by England Cricket Board interim managing director Andrew Strauss that it wasn’t the end of the road. Mere words of consolation those weren’t. Broad was back for the home series against New Zealand that summer.

A rude shock

But, at the first training session at Lord’s ahead of the first Test, he was in for a shock, as he revealed recently in the For The Love Of Cricket podcast. Newly appointed captain Ben Stokes told him, “Broady, I just want to let you know, I am going to whack every ball you bowl for four or six.”

Broad, who was hoping, on his return, to impress the skipper and new coach Brendon McCullum, was taken aback. “Really?” he wondered. “Why?”

“I want the guys I am going to lead this week to look at me and see that I am playing fearlessly, even in training, testing my limits,” replied Stokes.

Broad’s thoughts were slightly different: “All my teammates are now going to see me get thumped everywhere.”