25 September 2023 , 13:18
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Northamptonshire head coach Jon Sadler believes adopting England's 'Bazball' tactic contributed to their relegation to County Championship Division 2.
The Steelbacks were relegated from the top tier of county cricket after drawing against Surrey last week. Sandler's side have picked up just one win from their 13 first-class matches so far this season and face Essex in their final four-day game of the 2023 season, starting on Tuesday.
There is no doubt Northamptonshire have not been good enough throughout the campaign, but Sadler has partly blamed their misfortunes on his batters trying to play the same way as the national side. "I think we got drawn into a bit of Bazball as a batting group early season," Sadler told BBC Radio Northampton.
"We've seen how England play, a couple of lads potentially wanted to play that way to get noticed further up (by the selectors) - the learning from that is there's more than one way to skin a cat. We've seen some very good players play a little old fashioned this year and still do very well."
Adding on why his side were ultimately relegated, Sadler said: "That first block of six games, we lost five tosses out of six, the one that we did win, we won the game against Middlesex. We had some big players injured, we lost our captain for a chunk of those games, we lost our wicketkeeper, Sando [Ben Sanderson] wasn't fit, he was in and out of the side and didn't have as much zip as he's got now.
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"Emilio [Gay] had a knee operation two weeks before the start of the season, Tommy Taylor had a sore back, it's why we look at having squad depth. There's a number of reasons but ultimately we haven't played good enough cricket."
John Sadler's Northamptonshire will play in County Championship Division 2 next season (Getty Images)Bazball was named and implemented after the appointment of Brendon McCullum as England test head coach and Ben Stokes as captain. The style is designed to to have an emphasis on taking positive decisions in attack and defence, whether that's when the team are batting or bowling.
Having been integrated into the England set-up almost 12 months ago, the approach really came under the spotlight during the Ashes. Although Australia ended up retaining the urn following a 2-2 draw, Stokes' England could count themselves unlucky not to have come out on top.
Speaking after the series draw, McCullum said: "It's a little way away and there’s different challenges to cross before then. You look back to when the skipper [Ben Stokes] took over and I came in as well, [the question was] would we be able to take on a great Australian team – and they are a great Australian team – and go toe to toe with them?
"I think the answer is yes and that’s a tremendous confidence booster for the group. There will be some new faces in two and a half years, there’s no doubt, for both sides, but I’d imagine it could be another cracking series when the time comes."