{"id":1245804,"date":"2023-07-03T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/?p=1245804"},"modified":"2023-08-05T07:38:47","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T07:38:47","slug":"is-golf-hurting-english-cricket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/is-golf-hurting-english-cricket\/","title":{"rendered":"Is golf hurting English cricket?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second Ashes Test ended at Lord\u2019s yesterday with essentially the same outcome as the first one at Edgbaston: Australia won. Put another way, England lost. If one believes some of the noise surrounding England cricket at the moment, one would think that the team\u2019s captain, Ben Stokes, may not care about the result too much because the \u2019Bazball\u2019 brand of cricket he encourages is all about entertaining, ideally with some winning thrown in. I don\u2019t buy that, but I did like a quote of his the other day, responding to criticism that his players hit too many \u201dbad shots\u201d. Stokes said: \u201cIt\u2019s only ever a bad shot because it was out. You might try the exact same shot at another ball, catch it sweetly and it sails over the rope for a four or six, and then no one will say anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is, of course, largely correct. And he may well feel his magnificent innings yesterday was a vivid example of that point. But if there is a problem with the England cricket team at present, is golf perhaps to blame? A couple of weeks ago, writing in The Guardian<\/em>, Barney Ronay said: \u201cIf England play most of the time like a group of men in a raging hurry to get to a round of golf, then this is in part because they are.\u201d He went on to say of Jonny Bairstow, the batter\/wicketkeeper, that \u201che is just back from serious injury (and a bizarre leg-break incident while playing golf is in itself deeply Bazball)\u201d. You may know that Bairstow slipped while leaving a tee at Pannal Golf Club last September, with those horrible consequences. In The Times<\/em> this past Saturday, Gideon Haigh wrote that \u201cEngland\u2019s top order batted as if mindful of an imminent tee time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few days after his first blast, Ronay had another go, writing about Bazball in anthropomorphic fashion: \u201cWe are here to save Test cricket. And we will do this by taking franchise money from December to May [such as by playing in the Indian Premier League], playing golf during the red-ball season at home\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n