Talk:Bazball

Proposed deletion of Bazball
I propose that the Bazball article be considered for deletion or, at the very least, merged into a larger, more relevant article such as the England cricket team or Brendon McCullum's page. The main reason for this proposal is the issue of notability, the inconclusive success of Bazball, and the inappropriate use of the tragic death of Phillip Hughes to inflate the importance of Bazball.

Bazball is a term coined to describe the style of play of the England cricket team during the 2022 season. While it has been successful and has generated discussion, it is essentially a team mantra that has existed for only one year. Moreover, its success and significance are inconclusive. There are multiple instances where Bazball has failed, such as during the Ashes series against Australia where England lost the first two matches and only managed to draw the series despite having the home field advantage and the ongoing 2023 Cricket World Cup in India.

Furthermore, Brendon McCullum, the person associated with the term, has himself stated:

"'I don't have any idea what 'Bazball' is. It's not just all crash and burn, if you look at the approach, and that's why I don't really like that silly term that people are throwing out there. Because there's actually quite a bit of thought that goes into how the guys manufacture their performances and when they put pressure on bowlers and which bowlers they put pressure on. There's also times where they've absorbed pressure beautifully as well'." This further questions the notability and more bluntly the basic relevance of the term.

The notability of Bazball is further questioned when compared to other cricket-related terms and events. A Google Trends graph comparing the search interest for "Phil Hughes", "ball tampering", "Bazball", and "Virat Kohli wedding" from 2013 to 2023 shows that Bazball has significantly less search interest.

For comparison, the 2018 Australian ball-tampering scandal, the second most significant event in recent cricket history has about 4,000 words, while Bazball is over three quarters of the length in word count at about 3,800 words and seems destined to end up with a longer article despite the difference in noteriety in Cricket, by a dramatic order of magnitude. The tragic death of Phillip Hughes, the most notable event in cricket of the last decade, does not even have its own standalone article.

Yet, the Bazball article includes a section claiming that Hughes' death impacted Bazball. This seems disproportionate and could be seen as an attempt to inflate the importance of Bazball. It's as if the article is suggesting that the tragic event of Hughes' death somehow gave birth to Bazball, a concept that only existed for a year. This claim is not only speculative but also disrespectful to the memory of Hughes and the seriousness of the event. It's like saying the invention of the wheel was influenced by the extinction of the dinosaurs - a far-fetched connection at best.

Given these points, I believe that the Bazball article does not meet the notability guidelines and should be considered for deletion or merging. I welcome discussion on this proposal. Apathetic vs Ignorant? Dont Know Dont Care (talk) 05:55, 16 October 2023 (UTC)


 * If you want to tone down the Phil Hughes reference you can, if you want to write an article on the death of Phil Hughes you can, if you want to include criticism of Bazball you can. But given the extensive coverage of 'Bazball' over the last 18 months as can be seen by the amount of references in the article I struggle to see how it's notability can be questioned certainly through a PROD deletion which should only be used for an "uncontroversial deletion". Feel free to take it to WP:AFD. JP (Talk) 08:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)