OK, let me try and illustrate my point. Here's the highlights from yesterday's play:
I'm going to talk about the three balls from ~1:10 onwards. Reminder - the score is 29-3 on a greentop, and he's batting against a guy who has 350+ Test wickets.
The first shot is exquisite. A gorgeous cover drive of the highest order. Perfectly controlled. Astonishing timing.
The second is a rubbish long-hop from Southee that he puts away well
It's the third that gets me. He comes charging down the pitch and has a wild, uncontrolled swipe at a straight good-length ball. Because his hand-eye coordination is
so good, he middles it and smites it. But it's not a high percentage shot - and again, it's being played inside the first hour of a Test match on a lively pitch.
That shot, especially given its context, is (for me) the difference between normal, aggressive Test cricket and Bazball.
And to repeat myself - I'm not saying it's the wrong approach. It's almost certainly absolutely the right way to go in the modern game, given the skillset that young players develop nowadays.
Just saying that I hate it.
(though I might hate the 'Back Away followed by cross-batted heave' at 2:27 even more. The fact that Brook is capable of playing glorious conventional strokes makes his 'Stuart Broad on an angry day' baseball swings even uglier somehow)
