Innovation without Adaptation : The Bazball Business

When the English cricket team embraced Bazball under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, it closely resembled what often happens when a struggling company brings in a new leader to shake things up. A classic example is Apple in the late 1990s. When Steve Jobs returned, Apple was fearful, slow and close to irrelevance. Jobs simplified everything, removed hesitation and encouraged boldness. The early iMacs were colorful, unconventional, and energizing. Importantly, that phase wasn’t about perfection, it was about restoring belief. Bazball did the same for England; after years of tentative, joyless cricket, Stokes and McCullum told players to stop worrying about consequences and simply play. Confidence returned, players expressed themselves and results followed quickly. Like Apple’s revival, the initial success was real and deserved. 

However, many turnarounds fail when the corrective idea becomes absolute truth, rather than a temporary remedy. This happened at Uber after its explosive early growth. Their aggressive, rule-breaking culture helped it expand rapidly, but leadership began to treat aggression itself as a virtue, even when it caused regulatory, ethical and operational damages. Instead of asking whether a particular fight was worth picking, the company kept doubling down, because confrontation had become part of its identity. Bazball shows a similar pattern. What began as “play positively when it makes sense” gradually hardened into “positive play is always the right play”. Defence has became unfashionable and restraint is looked upon as lack of belief. In Test cricket, as in business, this is where judgement quietly disappears.

Early success often encourages leaders to turn results into mythology rather than analysis. A well-known example is BlackBerry. When its phones dominated the market, leadership concluded that customers would always prefer physical keyboards and email-focused devices. Instead of studying why they were winning and how conditions were changing, BlackBerry simply assumed that their formula was universally correct. England’s early Bazball victories, many of them at home on familiar pitches against teams still adjusting, risked a similar misreading. The lesson should have been that the approach worked under certain conditions. Instead, it began to be treated as a gospel about how Test cricket should be played, regardless of pitch, opposition, or match situation.

When ideology replaces adaptability, organizations often start rejecting uncomfortable feedback. Nokia offers a powerful example. Internally, their engineers saw the smartphone shift coming, but leadership was emotionally invested in its existing approach and dismissed dissent as 'negativity'. By the time reality forced change, it was too late. Bazball has shown hints of this same defensiveness. Losses are frequently explained not as tactical misjudgments, but as failures to commit fully to 'the philosophy'. Critics are portrayed as fearful or stuck in the past. In both business and sport, this is the moment when belief stops being a strength and starts becoming a shield against learning.

Another common feature of failed turnarounds is the redefinition of success. WeWork is an extreme but relevant case study. When financial reality clashed with the company’s narrative and the underlying numbers deteriorated, the conversation shifted toward culture, community and vision! These softer measures were not meaningless, but they were used to avoid confronting harder truths. In England’s case, when results falter, emphasis moves towards "entertainment, changing the game, and dressing-room happiness". These are valuable qualities, but Test cricket is ultimately a sport that judges teams by series wins and actual match performances. A stylish counterattack still counts the same as a collapse when the match is lost.

While an organization or team is busy rebuilding themselves and setting narratives, their competitors rarely remain static. Microsoft under Satya Nadella succeeded not by clinging to their past glory, but by adapting to new strategies when the market changed, even if that meant abandoning its once-sacred ideas. England’s opponents have adapted to Bazball in much the same way. Bowlers set traps, captains spread fields, and teams allow England’s aggression to turn into self-inflicted damage. England, by contrast, persists with the same approach, treating adjustment as compromise, rather than intelligence. Like continuing to attack spin on a crumbling pitch, because that is what the team believes in, even as the match slips away.

The deeper issue with Bazball, as with many failed businesses, is not bravery but confusion between courage and wisdom. Courage begins the recovery by breaking fear, while wisdom sustains success by knowing when to change. The most successful companies and the greatest cricket teams share this trait, they adapt without losing confidence. Bazball rescued England from paralysis, but unless it evolves into something more flexible and situational, it risks being remembered the way many bold but unfinished turnarounds are remembered, not as failures of intent, but as powerful ideas that simply refused to grow up.