Alex Lees and Zak Crawley epitomise ‘Bazball’ with historic opening stand

Given that Test cricket has been played for close to 150 years, there are sound reasons for the emergence of certain conventional wisdoms in how various aspects of the game work. Bowl first under cloud cover, do not bother abusing your fast bowlers in Sri Lanka, and get your spinner involved early on a deteriorating day-five pitch.

With a series of appetising foot marks tantalisingly placed just outside Alex Lees’ off stump, it was no surprise then that Ravindra Jadeja, India’s only frontline spinner at Edgbaston, was thrown the ball just eight overs into England’s second innings.

Chasing an improbable 378 runs to win, few had expected England’s openers to get off to the flyer that they had against Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. But here, against Jadeja, was the truest test of their mettle.

On strike was a man who, in his first few matches in an England shirt, resembled little more than a limpet, paralysed in his quest to survive. Indeed, in his short seven-Test career, Lees had only once previously scored at a strike rate above 66.66 – and even the exception could be described as a statistical anomaly with the innings in question lasting just five balls.

So imagine the surprise when he promptly danced down the track first ball and biffed Jadeja straight to the long-off boundary. Or when, a few deliveries later, he reverse-swept hard for four more to take the tally off the over to 10. That it was only the fifth time he had played the shot in his first-class career told a tale of just how unusual this approach was.

Since the advent of ‘Bazball’ earlier this summer, England’s opening partnership had been notable outliers in the sudden gear change that has seen batting records shattered with preposterous consistency. In