After all, the decision to keep the faith with Ollie Pope at No 3 instead of pitching in the exciting, young talent of Jacob Bethell could be seen as an indication of a more conservative mindset.
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Bethell, who exploded onto the scene in New Zealand last winter, is the future. The 21-year-old also has the game – solid defence, strong off the back foot and always ready to punish loose bowling – to thrive in Australia.
If the words of captain Ben Stokes on the eve of this series are anything to go by, that mantra seems to have changed to “stop running, you might trip, turn around, calmly back away from the danger and go down the emergency exit.”
Stressing the need to be more circumspect and reflective when things go wrong, he said: “We know when we are on top of teams we are very, very good and where we maybe have let ourselves down over the last three years is when we have been behind the game.
“Look at some of the victories we’ve had, they have been in a manner of complete dominance of the game throughout. But when we have lost, we probably look back on moments. Could we have been a lot better at slowing everything down and understanding where we are in the position of the game to then allow us to play in that natural way we like to go about things?
“I don’t think it’s arrogant or an understatement to say we’ve been good over the last three years but we definitely know we can improve.”
England vs India, 1st Test
Venue: Headingley Start time: 11am England (confirmed): Z Crawley, BM Duckett, OJD Pope, JE Root, HC Brook, BA Stokes (c), JL Smith (wkt),CR Woakes, BA Carse, JC Tongue, S Bashir India (probable): KL Rahul, S Yadav, BS Sudharsan, S Gill (c), K Nair, RR Pant (wkt), RA Jadeja, SN Thakur, JJ Bumrah, M Siraj, MP Krishna Umpires: C Gaffaney (NZ), P Reiffel (AUS) TV umpire: A Raza (PAK) Weather: 29°C, sunny How to watch: Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Cricket from 10amCrucially, it would be foolish to think England’s tweaking of their style would make them boring.
This change of approach was first flagged by McCullum after the 4-1 defeat in India last year, a series that summed up the Bazball paradox as England pulled off a miraculous victory in the series opener in Hyderabad before being overrun by the hosts.
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Channelling their aggression and refining the approach has made them a better team. Further refinement against India this summer will hopefully see them reach another level by the time the Ashes rolls around this winter.
It was Bazball in excelsis, but to get to that a higher plain of cricketing achievement, they need to evolve.
And if they can get on a roll this summer and sweep aside a new-look India shorn of icons Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin, nobody will be calling it boring.
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