The official social media handle of the England and Wales Cricket Board recently crowned a ‘King’. Alongside videos celebrating his exploits, it declared – ‘New Ball King’.

Crowns, especially in England, are not handed out on a whim. They demand performances befitting royalty. This summer, one man has done just that, turning successive matches into his own royal procession – Ollie Robinson.

The road to royalty, however, has been anything but straightforward for the 32-year-old all-rounder. Before this summer, Robinson had last worn the England whites more than two years ago, against India in Ranchi in 2024, an outing where his returns were so meagre that he was banished from the English national cricketing scene.

Had it coming

The writing, though, had been on the wall for a while. Robinson’s fitness was a concern, dating back to the 2021-22 Ashes, before his back trouble resurfaced during the 2023 home season.

Then came Ranchi. A back spasm while batting was followed by 13 wicketless overs, with his pace at one stage dipping below 70mph. England had seen enough.

The then bowling coach Jon Lewis had made clear what Robinson needed to do. “If he’s going to perform consistently over a long period at this level, he’ll need to be a fitter bowler,” Lewis had said.

Robinson hardly helped his cause off the field either. During the same India tour, a podcast he hosted with his now spouse revealed behind-the-scenes details from the England camp, prompting the management to have the episode taken down.

While the England door remained firmly shut, Robinson went about rebuilding his career with Sussex. He helped the County earn promotion in 2024, and continued to pile up the wickets the following season. Significantly, by the start of 2026, Sussex had entrusted him with something England never thought he could handle – the role of a leader.

Elevated to red-ball captaincy, Robinson embraced it. Sussex won three of its opening five County Championship matches, while the skipper led from the front with 17 wickets and 305 runs. There was even a back-to-the-wall, unbeaten century at No. 10 against Surrey at The Oval.

Rekindling the fun

The transformation, however, was not merely about wickets and runs. A winter spent playing grade cricket for Sydney University in Australia in late 2025 had helped Robinson rediscover his love for the game.

“Just got the love of the game back, really,” Robinson said during his comeback Test at Lord’s versus New Zealand this June. “It’s only, probably, in the last few months that I’ve got the enjoyment back. And knuckled down a bit more.”

It was a long way from where his mind had been a few months earlier. Around Christmas, Robinson had virtually resigned himself to the possibility of his England chapter being over. “I thought at Christmas time I was never playing for England again,” he admitted.

But he knew that if there was to be another chance, there was only one way of earning it. “As much as I obviously want to play for England again, I need to take wickets and rip up trees to receive that call,” he told Wisden before the season.

And rip he did, with the ball, the bat and as a leader.

The then red-ball head coach Brendon McCullum certainly took note. “We said bang the door down, and through the weight of performance in County cricket he has banged the door down,” gushed the Kiwi.

Striking gold

At Lord’s against New Zealand, Robinson needed all of six balls to remind England what it had been missing.

The first two deliveries of his return passed without incident. The third trapped Devon Conway in front. Two balls later, Kane Williamson lobbed one to short-leg for a duck before Rachin Ravindra was pinned down for a leg-before. A triple-wicket maiden — some way to announce a comeback!

Robinson was not done yet. To his five for 39 in the first innings, he added two wickets in the second, and chipped in with a valuable 29 with the bat as England completed a 115-run victory.

He missed the next two Kiwi Tests, first owing to injury and the next because of non-selection. But the three Tests against Pakistan turned his comeback into a statement.

Robinson made the Dukes cherry swing, seam and dance both ways even as he used his height and high release-point to extract steep bounce. There was the wobble-seam delivery that would hold its line, the nip-backer that would dart in, and the full inswinger. Pakistan was left bamboozled.

England added another little twist to the plan — Jamie Smith standing up to the stumps to stop Pakistan batters from venturing on adventures down the pitch, allowing the seamer to keep attacking the stumps.

It began at Headingley with the very first ball of the series as Robinson trapped Azan Awais in front. His five for 51 was followed by three for 29 as England romped home by an innings and 103 runs.

Relentless

Lord’s brought no respite for Pakistan. Robinson’s first five-over spell cost just six runs before he returned for another seven overs that went for only four and fetched four wickets. Four for 11 in the first innings; another four in the second; England had the series in the bag. Three Tests into his return. Three Player-of-the-Match awards.

Edgbaston merely extended Pakistan’s torment. Robinson’s three for 15 in the first essay included his 100th Test wicket before he swapped ball for bat and cracked a 47-ball 50. Then, back with ball in hand, he removed Saim Ayub first delivery and Abdullah Shafique three balls later.

Pakistan eventually found a way to blunt him, but it was a little too late as England completed an eight-wicket victory and a 3-0 sweep. Robinson had 21 wickets from the three fixtures at a mind-boggling average of 8.76 and an economy rate of 2.04.

Numbers, though, told only half the story.

The 32-year-old’s skill was never under question. It was whether his body and mind could sustain the rigours of the highest level. McCullum had put it rather plainly: “When his pace drops to 75, 76mph and the threat diminishes, he is not the same bowler.”

There, perhaps, was the difference.

The Robinson who laboured through Ranchi at under 70mph had returned fitter, happier and clearer in the mind. The height and movement were the same. The control was still there. But now, he had the body to keep it all going. The result was 28 wickets from four Tests and England’s Test Player-of-the-Summer award.

There will be tougher examinations. The Dukes will refuse to dance to his tune sometimes; conditions will not always favour him; better batting line-ups will find ways to get runs off him.

But for a man who spent more than two years out in the cold, Robinson has certainly turned up the heat this summer. Nine months since that contemplative Christmas, he is now the No. 3 bowler in the world.

“The hard work’s not done yet. We’re just getting started,” said Robinson. More coronations in store? Time will tell.

In the glorious annals of Test cricket, which will ring in its 150th anniversary next year, some numbers have acquired permanence over time.

Sir Don Bradman’s otherworldly Test average of 99.94 will forever be iconic. Sunil Gavaskar’s 10,122 runs, on account of the Indian being the first in the world to cross 10K, is epochal. The mild-mannered Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s 800 scalps, snared with a ferocious snap of his right arm, is another monumental figure.

The magic figure

More broadly, in sync with the sport’s tendency to set benchmarks through statistics, a career average of 50 has long been the magic figure for batters in white flannels. Operating in another stratosphere without doubt was Bradman, whose average over 52 Tests from 1928 to 1948 is an insurmountable peak of the kind unlikely to be witnessed again in all of sport.

Moreover, Bradman’s influence extended beyond the field, with his runs acting as a balm to hordes of Australians suffering the grim consequences of the Great Depression.

For the rest, who cannot reach such dizzy heights, averaging half as much as the pre-eminent Australian over a reasonably lengthy career is a measure of bona fide greatness. To do so, a batter must be able to straddle different worlds, ranging from the fast and bouncy surfaces of Australia and South Africa in the southern hemisphere to the dusty, spin-friendly decks of the subcontinent.

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But in a landscape where so much of the Test game is undergoing transformation, there is perhaps a change unfolding here as well.

Among those with a minimum of 2000 runs starting January 1, 2020, only three have achieved the gold standard of 50 — the recently retired Kane Williamson of New Zealand and a pair of Englishmen in Joe Root and Harry Brook. The corresponding data for preceding decades point to a perceptible shift: 11 batters had a 50-plus average from 2010 to 2019, and as many as 19 from 2000 to 2009.

A multitude of factors

It isn’t by happenstance that the beginning of this shift coincides with the introduction of the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2019. Ever since teams have been incentivised to pursue silverware at the end of every two-year cycle, they have prioritised optimising home advantage by looking to win as many games as possible in familiar climes.

The chance to bag 12 points for a victory in the WTC, as opposed to four for a draw, encourages the pushing of the envelope. Result-oriented surfaces, where ball dominates bat, have thus become common.

The venues in Australia offer a striking example. In years gone by, most pitches Down Under had sharp pace and steep bounce, but they were also eminently favourable to batters who relished the cut and pull. Once the new Kookaburra ball lost its lustre, the willow-wielders were in prime position to make hay under the baking sun.

Now, the balance has swayed significantly in favour of the pacers. So much so that three of the last seven Tests have finished inside two days, with the fast men reaping the rewards. Even the Sydney Cricket Ground, traditionally conducive to guile and flight, has turned into a fast-bowling paradise.

“Probably averaging 35 with the bat is the same as averaging 45 a decade ago. I think the wickets have changed that much,” Aussie quick Josh Hazlewood told the media recently.

Changed thinking

In the view of former India opener Wasim Jaffer, a patient accumulator of runs during his playing days, a rise in result-oriented strips shouldn’t be an alibi for batters’ shortcomings. He contends that the prevailing mindset of run-makers, given their routine exposure to white-ball cricket, seldom lends itself to digging in and grinding out a meaningful score.

Increasingly, to paraphrase Jaffer, finding batters in the mould of Rahul Dravid or Cheteshwar Pujara is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“As soon as the ball seams, swings or spins, and conditions are a little in favour of the bowlers, the batters want to attack their way out of trouble,” Jaffer told The Hindu. “You’re not going to find somebody like Dravid or Pujara who will play out a session or a spell and cash in a little later. We are generally living in a time where patience is non-existent.”

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Jaffer concurred with the broad sentiment that many of the pitches of late haven’t been straightforward for batting. However, he cited the example of Headingley 2002, one of India’s famous overseas wins in which Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly peeled off centuries, to assert that such challenges have been conquered.

“The mindset is not there to survive. As a result, even balanced pitches become talked about because the batters don’t stay for long. They make it look tougher at times,” he argued, before recollecting, “I was part of the Indian team in Leeds in 2002. The conditions were very difficult. Still, the Test went into the fifth day. We had batters like Sachin, Sourav and Rahul. They survived the tough phases, and then it became easier.”

More than one reason

When it comes to defensive technique too, there has probably been a downturn. A case in point is the waning ability of Indian batters against spin on tracks assisting turn.

While the presence of the Decision Review System (DRS) has added another degree of difficulty, for batters are far more prone to being adjudged leg-before, very few appear adept at using the depth of the crease to move fully forward or back. Over the past two home seasons, India has borne the brunt, against New Zealand left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner and South African offie Simon Harmer.

The bowlers, often condemned to anonymity in the shorter formats, deserve their share of the credit. The widespread use of the wobble-seam delivery, a type of release where the seam isn’t perfectly upright on purpose, is an illustration of the ingenuity of fast bowlers coming to the fore.

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Though the delivery isn’t exactly new, there seems to be greater awareness among a wider pool of quicks about the benefits of the seam wobbling on its way to the batter. For the men facing up, in comparison to dealing with swing through the air, there are no obvious clues to lean on when the ball deviates off the surface after pitching.

“It’s an additional weapon in the armoury of fast bowlers. The wobble seam sometimes confuses you as a batter. If it lands in the right spot and darts back in, it creates problems,” Jaffer observed.

It brings us interestingly to Virat Kohli, Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. Formidable occupants of India’s middle-order until three years ago, they have all retired from Test cricket over the past 15 months.

At the time of their exits, the fact that none of them finished with an average above 50 was perceived to be a blot on their careers. It may not be so in the years to come.

The end came swiftly. It took New Zealand only 51.2 overs to wrap up the England second innings at Trent Bridge.

Jamie Smith’s slog against Mitchell Santner ended in the hands of a diving Nathan Smith, running in from long-on. That was not just the end of the third Test. It was also the end of what was perhaps the most discussed, or debated, style of playing Test cricket since Bodyline.

Breaking point

New Zealand won by 160 runs, and also became the first team ever to win a three-match series in England after losing the opening Test. It was indeed a fabulous achievement by Tom Latham’s men.

For Latham’s English counterpart, Ben Stokes, it was his last international match. For the coach, Brendon McCullum, it was the last Test in charge of England.

Bazball thus came to its inevitable end. Ironically, it had begun with a series against New Zealand in an English summer, four years ago. And it had begun in magnificent fashion, with England winning four Tests, all chasing, all with guns blazing, in a row — three against New Zealand and one against India.

It was even more remarkable because the England Test team was going through a tough period at that time: it had won just one of 17 matches after the first Test against India at Chennai in early 2021. Coach Chris Silverwood lost his job, following the 0-4 drubbing in the 2021-22 Ashes in Australia, and after the defeat in the Caribbean in March 2022, Joe Root resigned.

So, it wasn’t the most ideal of situations when McCullum was appointed as England’s Test coach by Rob Key, managing director of England men’s cricket. And the Kiwi had no previous experience of coaching in red-ball cricket, though he had been in charge of franchise teams such as the Kolkata Knight Riders.

McCullum conceived, Stokes executed. They will be remembered as one of cricket’s most remarkable coach-captain duos.

Their approach to playing Test cricket was the kind that hadn’t been witnessed before. New Zealand and India weren’t prepared for the ultra-aggressive mode of cricket England played in the summer of 2022.

It was not just England’s style that was spectacular. The results were, too.

Against New Zealand, England’s scores in the second innings were 279 for five, 299 for five, and 296 for three. Against India, it was 378 for three. And those chases were completed at brisk strike-rates.

Chasing a big total has always been a daunting task in Test cricket. Safety first has nearly always been the mantra, and even that stunning chase by India against Australia at Brisbane in 2021 had begun on a cautious note. It took an extraordinary hook by Washington Sundar against Pat Cummins and an out-of-the-world counterattacking knock by Rishabh Pant to make India shift gears and aim for the ultimate glory.

Interestingly, Stokes once spoke of how the manner in which Pant played made him think about the possibilities of aggressive batting in Test cricket. And before Pant, there were Adam Gilchrist and Virender Sehwag, but what made the concept of Bazball different was that everyone wanted to bat as if there was no tomorrow. If a wicketkeeper as accomplished as Ben Foakes could not find a place in the eleven, it showed what McCullum and Stokes wanted.

Finding expression

What Bazball looked to do was to remove the fear of failing. So regardless of the situation, a player was allowed to play his strokes, or express himself, as England cricketers would explain in press conference after press conference. When England fielded, the bowlers were asked to always look for wickets; restricting the batters from making runs wasn’t the priority.

And England wanted to win. An exciting — though not successful — chase was found more appealing than a draw. One was never sure if that was quite right in competitive sport. And one of the charms of Test cricket — and also what someone new to cricket would not understand — is the sheer thrill of not getting a decisive result after playing for five days, more than 30 hours.

Such trivial matters, however, didn’t cross the minds of the English players, and their fans, for much of the early part of the Bazball era, as the team posted some astounding wins, like the one against Pakistan at Rawalpindi in 2022, when England scored 657 from just 101 overs. Two years later, the victory against India in the first Test at Hyderabad was even greater, as England had conceded a first-innings lead of 190.

The four Tests that followed, however, showed why Bazball can’t work all the time. India won all those matches. For all England’s aggressive intent, it is debatable whether a batter of Root’s quality needed to play a reverse scoop against a bowler of Jasprit Bumrah’s quality.

An identical scoreline (4-1) in the most recent Ashes in Australia meant that Bazball couldn’t click against stronger opposition. Bazball also worked more on flatter surfaces, while it had problems when the ball moved or turned.

Right from the beginning of Bazball, the big question was whether it was a sustainable model. As former England batter Mark Butcher told The Hindu recently, Test cricket is a format that dictates to you what is necessary. “If you push too hard, the game will bite you back,” he said.

McCullum and Stokes had indeed pushed too hard. When you go on to lose a Test match by two wickets after declaring on the opening day with two wickets remaining, questions are bound to be asked.

Questions were also asked about how some of the England players behaved off the field during the Bazball era. The pub-incident involving Stokes and Gus Atkinson this summer didn’t help, either.

The statistics may not say that England benefited much from Bazball. In 49 Tests, England scored 27 wins, but lost 20. That there were just two draws is of course hardly surprising.

A fair evaluation

But it would not be fair to evaluate Bazball’s legacy just based on numbers, even if they are impressive when it comes to run-rates, strike-rates and hundreds. It was an attempt to play Test cricket in a different way and entertain the paying public.

But for Bazball, we would not have been able to witness Jonny Bairstow metamorphosing into Viv Richards in 2022 or Ollie Pope turning the reverse sweep into the best form of defence during his monumental 196 in the Hyderabad Test. Bazball was fun while it lasted.

It could have lasted longer perhaps if England had been a little more conservative on occasion and realised that Test cricket’s charm lies in its infinite variety. There is more than one way to play what is the most demanding form of all sports.

There is joy in watching Harry Brook dance down the track. There is also joy in watching Shubman Gill play a perfect forward defensive push.

It was 25 years ago that Mark Butcher scored a monumental 173 not out in England’s successful chase against Australia in the Headingley Test. He scored seven other Test hundreds, some of them against the most fearsome attacks. He is now a popular commentator and sharp analyst of the game. Excerpts from Butcher’s exclusive interview with The Hindu at Lord’s:

Your comparison of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with Garry Sobers earlier this year got a lot of attention. It was fascinating, how you proved, through the help of visuals, the similarities in the bat swing, hand speed…

I watched him make that 175 [off 80 balls] in the Under-19 World Cup final [against England at Harare]. I was struck by that incredible, long, high backlift, the huge follow-through, the complete circle almost where the bat finishes around, tapping him on the spine. You know, Sobers used to hit a lot of shots with his feet together. He would play full balls almost off the back foot. And Sooryavanshi can hit them like that too.

Even if his career ends up not reaching the expectations that other people have, which I think is very unlikely, he has still in the IPL done something that all of the greatest players up until now have never, ever done: none of them have managed to score at a strike-rate of 230, hit that many sixes, be that consistent in the entirety of the IPL. It is still one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen.

Today’s youngsters are exposed to T20 from the beginning, whereas when I was very young, it was Test matches. They grow up thinking about batting very much in a hyper aggressive mode. These younger guys can do things at their age that we wouldn’t have dreamt of at ours.

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Yes, even Sachin Tendulkar didn’t hit as many sixes, for all his genius. Sooryavanshi is a product of the T20 era of cricket.

Correct. So he will have to learn the game the other way around. He will have to learn how to bat time, to defend. In our generation, it was the opposite. We would have to spend a lot of time learning how to hit the ball.

How do you recall your masterpiece — 173 not out in 2001?

My main memory is about that summer, really. I wasn’t expecting to play Test cricket again. I got an opportunity and I played 42 Tests in a row. I had completely changed my game.

Your father helped, didn’t he?

That is right. The biggest thing I remember is the relationship I had with my dad in the winter of 2001. I called him and said, ‘Dad, I am hating playing cricket.’ Something that I had always loved. Now I was hating it. And I said to him — ‘Treat me as though I have never played the game before.’ So we went right back to the beginning. He really taught me how to hold the bat, how to stand, the whole thing. We changed my grip. We changed my stance. We changed my backlift. Everything. We went back to zero. Like I was five years old. And we worked like that for about three months. And then I luckily got back into the team. I had made a few runs playing for Surrey. A few injuries in the England camp before the Ashes started, and I got in.

How much does that knock, which came against Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, mean to you?

Ah, it was huge. You wouldn’t be talking to me if it hadn’t been for that. And I wouldn’t be working in TV either. So that innings changed everything. It was the greatest day.

And how was the coach’s reaction?

I know my dad was in tears when [BBC] Test Match Special called him up.

The players you like to watch these days?

I actually love watching K.L. Rahul. I think he is a sensational player. Really classy. Harry Brook is fabulous to watch when he is in. Joe Root, too. And Travis Head — you can’t take your eyes off the screen when he is batting.

You have played against some of the greatest bowlers in history. Who were the most challenging among them?

Blimey! Curtly Ambrose. Him and Courtney Walsh. And then you had, obviously, Shane Warne. Glenn McGrath. Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan].

Among the Indians?

Harbhajan [Singh] and [Anil] Kumble, on those tracks.

And the batters you admired?

[Brian] Lara was sort of the king around about those times. Fellow left-hander, so I greatly admired him. Then the guys like [Ricky] Ponting, Sachin [Tendulkar], obviously. I remember applauding Ricky from second slip at the WACA, much to the annoyance of Nasser Hussain, who was standing next to me at slip. He glared at me. I was just standing there going, ‘Oh man, that’s good’. There were a lot of great players around, like the South Africans, Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith.

Is there cause for concern about the future of Test cricket?

Yeah, of course, there is. What you would like is to have eight to ten teams who are competing on a level playing field. If only England, Australia and India are playing each other, the game is starting to eat itself, you know.

Eventually, one of the great things about all of the series that go around is that you are anticipating and you are excited about the idea about playing this team at this venue. But if it is the same three teams the whole time, it is not that exciting.

What has happened in the modern era is that the gap between the countries that have plenty of finances and the rest has got wider. The competition has perhaps thinned out a little bit in recent times. And that is a huge shame, that finances have meant that a lot of countries, the West Indies, being the most obvious example simply because of their dominance [in the past], have suffered.

South Africa are kind of hanging in there. They are still producing a lot of players and they still manage just about to keep enough of their most talented players to play Tests. But in places like Sri Lanka and the West Indies, they find it very difficult to keep their best players who disappear off to earn more money playing T20. And that is a problem for the world game.

The First Class game and the structures that produce Test Match cricketers are strong in some places and not very strong at all in others.

Your thoughts on Bazball?

I have been critical of it at times. In the game of cricket, the Test match is the game. And they tried to do something that was going to take the game to a different place. But Test match cricket kind of fought against it a little bit. Because when it came down to it, in the big games against the likes of India and Australia, it didn’t work. And so, Test match cricket is kind of greater than any idea that people might have around how you play it.

And Test cricket is the greatest form of sport.

It is. The sport itself dictates to you what is necessary. And if you push too hard, the game will bite you back. And that is what happened. There is as much pleasure to be taken from a really hard-fought draw sometimes as there is from smashing it all over the park.

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The women got to play a Test at Lord’s, finally.

This has come about because the world has decided, well, you know, this is a great game of cricket, right? Why would we want to stop 50% of the world’s population from enjoying and playing the sport that we think is a great sport? And so that opportunity is now there and what you are seeing is a product of that.

Players in the women’s game that you enjoy watching?

I like Smriti Mandhana’s batting. She is just an incredibly graceful player. So easy on the eye. Very, very lovely to watch. She plays pace and spin equally well. She reminds me of David Gower, in fact. Harmanpreet Kaur is very good to watch, too. And Jemimah Rodrigues is a fine technician.

Besides cricket, music is your other passion. And you had the opportunity of performing with Sarah Brightman, one of the greatest voices of our time.

It was good fun, singing some of Sarah’s favourite songs on live television. It was kind of nerve-racking, but it was good.