Can Bazball teach us something about freedom?

In the wake of England's remarkable victory over India in Hyderabad, Cameron Wiltshire-Plant explores the unlikely links between Bazball and the spiritual life.

Cameron Wiltshire-Plant

Cameron is training to be a vicar in the city of Leicester.

A gaggle of cricket players, dressed in whites, stand on the field. One raises there arm

The England team.

Back in May 2022, the way England played cricket got a new nickname - bazball. Coined by a journalist, it reflected the name and attitude of the pair who lead the team - .Brendon 'Baz' McCullum and captain Ben Stokes. Both had reputations as attacking players. That nickname has proven to be extremely prescient.

The name has accompanied England in the eighteen months since, describing their transformation from a side languishing with a record of one win in seventeen, to perhaps the most feared side in the world because of their aggressive style of play, winning twelve of their first thirteen tests with Stokes in full-time charge. This England team are currently testing their newfound confidence on an away trip to India where no side has won for eleven years, travelling with more optimism than at any point in the last decade, having whitewashed Pakistan last winter 3-0.

Bazball, at its core, is about freedom to fail. Stokes and McCullum realised that fear of failure was suppressing performances, so they took the burden from the players.

What is ‘Bazball’? It’s even made it into the dictionary, with its definition being ‘a style of test cricket in which the batting side attempts to gain the initiative by playing in a highly aggressive manner.’ This doesn’t go far enough.

The approach is not merely about batting but aggression in bowling, fielding, and team selection, encompassing almost a way of life. Recently retired fast bowler Stuart Broad summarising it as choosing ‘running towards the danger.’ Perhaps cricket journalist Ali Martin sums it up best; ‘to soak up pressure when required but also be brave enough to put it back on opponents at the earliest opportunity; to make taking wickets the sole aim in the field; and to strive chiefly for victory across the five days without considering the draw.’

All of this seems a little bit corporate-speak. Bazball has been accused of this fragility often; that it consists merely of good vibes and brash talk, and that the steam will soon run out of this new approach once some better teams are faced. But dig a little deeper and one principle stands out above the rest: freedom. Cricket can be a suffocating sport to play, even on a village green on a Saturday- a team sport, but one in which the bowler and batsman compete alone in a gladiatorial contest repeatedly. Scale this up to test level, with bowlers throwing them down at 90mph, thousands of spectators, the pressure of performing for your country, and the fight to keep your place in the team, and you can soon see how the pressure can become a burden.

Bazball, at its core, is about freedom to fail. Stokes and McCullum realised that fear of failure was suppressing performances, so they took the burden from the players- the talk of aggression, of running to danger, of attacking, is the permission to fail. By being prepared to lose, if the loss is a result of a determination to win, the fear of defeat is removed. Of course, without the intense pressure of defeat looming over them, players revel in this freedom and performances and results have dramatically improved. Almost all the batsmen have improved their average runs per innings and the bowlers have taken every wicket available except in one instance. Stokes has explained the freedom given in this way to the media:

‘[Bazball] has taken away all the external pressures of playing international sport. There's enough on individuals and as a team as it is but taking all the other stuff away is why everything is so relaxed, calm and enjoyable at the moment.’

Despite Bazball’s wider impact, with England football, rugby, and hockey all admitting to being inspired, does Bazball have anything to say to us outside of elite sport? It could be perceived as simply a method of getting performances out of cossetted professionals weighed down by expectation through a bit of team building and positive messaging. Instead of practicing cricket Stokes’ team practice golf. Players can now set their own bedtimes. How does this relate? However, it’s the stories of McCullum and Stokes that give bedrock to the ethereality of the Bazball concept.

Perhaps this is all Bazball is: cricket-with-context. It’s easy to give freedom from fear of failure when you’ve come close to losing everything.

In November 2014, promising Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes was killed by a bouncer in an Australian domestic game, shocking the cricketing world. Brendon McCullum at the time captained New Zealand’s test team, and Hughes’ death awoke something in him; a realisation that cricket didn’t matter all that much, and was best enjoyed as entertainment, both for the players and spectators. Already an aggressive player and captain, McCullum went into overdrive, playing aggressive but joyful cricket all over the world, freed from consequences and simply enjoying playing. His New Zealand team reached the World Cup final the following year and McCullum signed off with the fastest Test hundred of all time- 54 balls(!)- in his final test.

Stokes himself has walked in his own darkness; arrested in 2017 just as his performances were rocketing for England for violently defending a gay couple on a night out after a win in Bristol, he lost the vice-captaincy and a place on an away Ashes tour despite eventually being acquitted. In 2021, after sustaining an injury to his finger that would not heal, and amidst the death of his father, he wrestled with panic attacks and anxiety, ultimately taking a six-month break from the sport completely. It’s easy to see because of these stories why losing a game of cricket has come to matter less than enjoyment of the sport and playing in an entertaining and relaxed style. Perhaps this is all Bazball is: cricket-with-context. It’s easy to give freedom from fear of failure when you’ve come close to losing everything.

This is something Christians have known for centuries. The knowledge that your darkest sins and most crass mistakes aren’t fatal, but can be forgiven and wiped clean can give a freedom that transforms life. Rather than the anxious striving for perfection that can come in both religious and in secular forms, there is freedom to fail. After all, performance anxiety is a problem for social media influencers, hedge fund traders and teachers as well as cricketers.

Of course forgiveness can be abused as a kind of license to do what you want, knowing you'll get pardoned in the end anyway. But that only reveals a heart that acts out of self-interest, not love. Just as Bazball arises out of a sheer love for the game, as even more important than winning, so Christian behaviour arises, not from a desire to get away with as much as you can can, but out of love for God and your neighbour. And paradoxically - both approaches end up 'winning' more often than not - either successful cricket, or a healthy spiritual and moral life.

This is the graced existence: knowing that we are all free to fail because of the love of God who forgives. In an infinitely truer way than that Bazball is context-making for cricket, so this grace is context-making for life; held by this God in friendship, despite our petty sins and moral confusion. Just as Bazball allows cricketers to play with freedom, ignoring the pressure of expectation and simply enjoying the game, so humans can live with freedom, winning the battle against the limitations and pressure we put on ourselves, and simply enjoy being alive.

After all, if we offend, make awkward, or receive rejection, grace holds us. And if these things go well, our lives will be much richer.

The freedom to fail has released these cricketers to play the most exciting, aggressive, entertaining cricket they can. They have used their self-made context for good. How can we use our God-given context for good? In the same way: remembering that we are held by grace and able to live without fear, able to conquer our own pressures and expectations, the narratives of self-criticism that restrain us in our same old ways. If our actions had no consequences, what risks might we take? Perhaps we would tend towards the destructive like the scenes played out in The Purge. Or perhaps, held by grace, we could tend towards the constructive. Breaking the habits we know have held us back. Conversing with people outside of our comfort zone, seeking out their stories. Phoning the friend or family member with whom our relationship has broken down. After all, if we offend, make awkward, or receive rejection, grace holds us. And if these things go well, our lives will be much richer.

Sometimes Bazball is revered as a novel method to relieve pressure and extract performances from tense athletes, but the Christian faith demonstrates this is nothing new. Bazball might have revolutionised Test cricket, but Stokes and McCullum have simply rediscovered the freedom that comes from God’s gift of grace.

Article

Creed

Migration

14 March 2025

7 min read

I wrote Jesus was a child refugee, I got called crazy

Digging into history uncovers uncomfortable truths.

Joan Taylor

Joan is Professor Emerita of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, King’s College London.

A red sandstone statue of Jesus as a child.

A Victorian statue of Jesus as a child.

As a historian of Jesus, I have sometimes been asked to comment on the question 'what would Jesus do today?'. I have sometimes responded. In September 2015 I wrote a guest post for the Jesus Blog, titled Jesus was a Refugee. It was on the story of baby Jesus’ escape to Egypt with his parents, as written in the Gospel of Matthew, which I conclude is historically true. It is interesting to me, because I want to understand what informed Jesus’ teaching as an adult.

I am not a theologian, a priest or a pastor. I have spent my academic career carefully working out what is true or false in terms of the many stories of the ancient past. So, when I discuss anything, it is after years of study, collegial discussion and discernment. Historians like me know that our ancient accounts come from particular people at different times, telling things with particular points of view. They don’t seek to tell the whole truth, but they shine a light on what is important to them. They can tweak, spin, modify or drop what is not essential to them, and we see this process unfold in retellings. In what I do, I am as analytical about biblical stories as I am about anything else, recognising that I too am located in a particular time and place, with my own capacity to see or not see. With biblical stories this is both rewarding and challenging because to me they are also Scripture, in that they inform my faith, spirituality and practice.

But this is a world in which sharing of expertise can go up in a puff of public pushback.

I wrote at the height of scaremongering about Syrian refugees who were fleeing to Europe to escape the dangers and devastation in their country and, given its relevance, the post was picked up on other sites. On Bible History Daily, there was a furious reaction in comments. People asked whether – even if Jesus was a refugee – his experience could be mapped on to issues of the contemporary world, which are so very different. Some commenters insisted that Jesus and his family could not be aligned with economic refugees like Mexicans or bogus refugees who were actually Muslim terrorists. More stingingly, I was told I was crazy, a professor of b******t and I was blaspheming for even suggesting that Jesus was a refugee.

That Jesus was a refugee has actually been recognised as part of his life from the very beginning of Christian tradition, and contemporary theologians like Barnabas Asprey can well explore what this means for faith. But it seems that some people were alarmed that I was diminishing Jesus by associating him with people they considered reprehensible.

My job is to understand Jesus in his own world. If I do it properly, people may well find resonances with today. But I do also understand that it is a tricky thing to map Jesus onto contemporary circumstances, especially contentious ones. Over a hundred years ago the philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer critiqued the 'quest of the historical Jesus' as a whole as covertly creating a liberal model of Jesus. He commented that the 'historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma'. If we met Jesus today, he would seem completely alien to us. So, we do have to be careful when we look to him in our arguments concerning current issues. Yet, Schweitzer also put a lot of trust in the words of Jesus, because his 'spirit, which lies hidden in his words, is known in simplicity, and its influence is direct. Every saying contains in its own way the whole Jesus.'

So where do we go with this? What did Jesus say? Frankly, Jesus’ ethos was utterly uncompromising. "Woe to you who are rich … woe to you who are well-fed now" (Luke 6:24-25), he said. There are a decent number of Jesus’ statements that suggest people who were economically struggling should be fed and welcomed, and those with wealth should share what they have with the have-nots. Jesus said to a rich man that he should "go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me" (Mark 10:21). Following Jesus was not about becoming destitute, but about joining a community of disciples who saw each other as one big family of siblings. In this group resources were shared (Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-37). This is beyond philanthropy. And Jesus didn’t talk about the worthiness of the poor; the problem was not with the poor, it was with the rich.

There’s a big question then in how to use Jesus as a model for ethics. To use Jesus as a model, you have to see the bigger picture of the whole movement he created, within an ancient context, a movement that does not exist any longer in its original form. Was Jesus a refugee? By calling anyone a refugee, in antiquity, I mean someone who flees their home to a place of refuge, to escape danger or disaster. As for my particular 'blasphemy', I reiterate it. Jesus was a child refugee: Jesus’ family fled from the danger of the Roman client king in Judaea, Herod, and escaped to Egypt. In classical Christian doctrine, this is not at all thought of as diminishing Jesus. It made Jesus one of us, in all our human hardships.

I think he turns things around, radically, so that the life of the wandering refugee is actually a paradigm for action.

Curiously, the fears expressed by the commenters on my post mirror ancient attitudes to poor, foreign people. Later apocryphal stories of the holy family in Egypt present them facing continual hostility from Egyptian townsfolk and attacks by robbers. These tales reflect an actual situation in which incoming foreigners, for whatever reason, were not welcome. For refugees, it could be a life of vulnerability. In the second century, the anti-Christian writer Celsus scoffs that child Jesus in Egypt worked for hire because of his poverty (Origen, Contra Celsum 1:28).

Egypt itself was not a totally safe place to be Jewish. Under the Roman prefect Flaccus (38-39 CE), soon after Jesus, there were riots and pogroms against the Jewish population of Alexandria, as the historian Josephus records (War 2:487-98; Ant. 18:257-60). In 41 CE the Roman emperor Claudius cautioned the long-settled Jewish population of Alexandria that they lived in 'a city not their own', and they were 'not to bring in or invite Jews who sail down to Alexandria from Syria[-Palestine]' (CPJ I:151). Later in the first century (70-73 CE), there were many Jewish refugees fleeing dangers in Judaea by going to Egypt (War 7: 407–419). Hundreds of these men, identified as troublemakers by the Romans, were killed, along with their families. I explore this and much more in my new book, Boy Jesus: Growing Up Judean in Turbulent Times. The life of a refugee was hard, and Jesus would have been told his parents’ stories about what they endured.

This is what is so interesting to me, because we know from contemporary studies of trauma that this would have had an impact on Jesus. There is received trauma resulting from the suffering, persecutions, hardships and distresses of parents and grandparents.

So how are these experiences reflected in Jesus’ sayings? I think he turns things around, radically, so that the life of the wandering refugee is actually a paradigm for action. Jesus, in his mission as a teacher and healer, identified himself as a displaced person: "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of humanity has nowhere to lay his head" (Matt. 8:20), he said. Jesus was itinerant, and he entered villages with nothing, offering healing and looking for kindness (food, shelter). He asked those who acted in his stead to go out without money or extra clothing, essentially to walk along the road like destitute refugees who had suddenly fled from home, relying on the generosity and hospitality of the ordinary people whose villages they entered (Mark 6.8-11). And it was precisely the villagers’ welcome or not to such people that showed what side they were on when it came to divine justice: "And if any place will not receive you and refuse to hear you, shake off the dust on your feet when you leave, for a testimony to them" (Mark 6.11).

If the sayings of Jesus show his spirit, time and again this spirit rests with the experience of the marginalised, the displaced, the persecuted, the sick and the poor. I say this as a historian, thinking of Jesus in his own time. How that sits with contemporary issues remains a question. To what extent can people of modern times, with all our baggage of private ownership, debts and anxieties about our jobs and livelihoods, share in Jesus’ ethos? In answering it, I suspect few of us will feel comfortable, whatever side we think we are on. But taking out the logs in our own eyes, rather than the specks in someone else’s, has never been easy.

Boy Jesus: Growing Up Judaean in Turbulent Times, Joan Taylor, SPCK Publishing.

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