Follow UsOver the last three years, one word that has been overused in world cricket is Bazball. Not because it is so damn good, but because everyone has their own understanding of the concept.
Is it mindless swinging? Is it uber-aggressive field setup? Or is it just a mindset switch and a deep-pocketed selection?
If you are still confused about what Bazball is, let me make it easy: watch Jamie Smith.
He’s Bazball in a nutshell. When the England management entrusted him with the gloves, the 23-year-old was just beginning to spread his wings at Surrey. Even today, a single mistake behind the stumps reignites the wicketkeeper debate.
But his selection genuinely defines Bazball, and he’s added the bass to Bazball.
Since his Test debut (July 2024), there’s just been one wicketkeeper in the world who has scored more runs than him, Rishabh Pant. There’s no denying that Pant is perhaps one of the best batters of this generation, forget wicketkeeper-batters.
That’s where Smith has quietly flown under the radar, amassing 725 runs in just 11 Tests. He embodies two crucial elements in modern Test cricket: consistency and aggression. Smith scores his Test runs at an average of 45.31 and a strike rate of 73.1.
Only two wicketkeeper-batters in the world have matched this balance of consistency and aggression: Alex Carey and Pant.
While Carey and Pant have received their due credit, Smith is rarely mentioned in the same breath when discussing the world’s best red-ball wicketkeeper-batters.
Since his debut, Smith has scored the most runs in a winning cause among wicketkeeper-batters. You might argue this is because England are winning. True, England are winning, but Smith’s role has been pivotal, with 523 runs in winning causes, averaging 52.3, including two fifties and a hundred.
One of those crucial knocks came last summer against Sri Lanka in Manchester, when the young wicketkeeper batter had to toil hard for his runs. At 125/4, with another 111 runs required to wipe off Sri Lanka’s first innings score during the 1st Test, England needed a Smith special, and he delivered with a 148-ball 111, which saw England take more than a 100-run lead.
But his biggest contributions are often in the fourth innings of a Test, where batting is typically toughest. In that phase, Smith has smashed 89 runs off 113 deliveries, including an unbeaten 44 against an Indian bowling unit featuring Jasprit Bumrah in the first Test of the ongoing series at Headingley.
It isn’t that he’s just blindly slogging either. He is masterfully employing white-ball hitting strategy with red-ball gaps.
He isn’t just soaking pressure like Foakes would have; he’s also taking the attack to the opposition, something his predecessor Foakes did not do. That's highlighted through his strike rate of 82.2 against pace and 64.8 against spin.
Smith’s real value lies in his ability to bat alongside bowlers. Why does this matter? For context, during India’s loss at Headingley, Ravindra Jadeja, a far more proven batter, averaged just 7.5 when batting with bowlers, as India managed only 45 runs combined toward the end of both their innings in that Test.
This isn’t an isolated case. Batting with the lower order requires a unique skill, often underappreciated. That’s where Smith, as a keeper-batter, proves clutch for Bazball.
He’s the ultimate partnership-maker in the English dressing room, with five partnerships where he’s involved, where the average is above 50. Only two of those partnerships have come with a specialist batter, which shows how Smith’s inclusion in this English setup has made a staggering difference.
Against India too, he was a vital cog in two very crucial partnerships for the Three Lions - a 73-run stand with Brook and a 71-run stand with Root. The first brought England within touching distance of wiping India’s first innings-score and the second took them over the line in a record run chase at Headingley.
When he’s batting with Brook, England often land a sucker punch even before the opposition realizes it. The duo have scored 231 runs off 241 balls—an outrageous rate even for ODIs—with 116 runs from Brook and 108 from Smith.
Add to that his reliability behind the stumps, with a 92.3% catch efficiency, and it’s clear why taking a gamble sometimes pays off. If our ancestors had never rubbed two stones together, we wouldn’t be human today.
Smith’s inclusion, an intuition-driven move, has shaped what Bazball is today.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”