Bazball is genius and wonderful. Also ridiculous, annoying, and bound to fail
Our correspondent writes up a report card for England's not so merry fellows in India, ranking how true they were to the B-word philosophy

Ben Stokes loses marks for finally acknowledging the existence of the term "Bazball" instead of continuing to be cool and dismissing it • Getty Images
Scored his runs at a strike rate of 54.22. Only took one wicket. Failed to produce any miraculous single-handed match-winning heroics. Has this guy even heard of the so-called "Bazball"?
About as funky as you would expect of a man who has seemingly been bowling fast-medium swing since the dawn of Test cricket.
The batter who blew India away with twin hundreds at Edgbaston in 2022 barely blew more than a few raspberries this time around - though he did admirably try to hit the cover off every ball in his 100th Test.
Trust in youth, let players express themselves. Ideally make sure they get issued their visa in time. These are the tenets of the so-called "Bazball". Loses a mark for being an offspinner, which is quite boring.
Turns out that when Crawley is consistent, England don't win Test matches. Chalk that one up to Brendon McCullum's galaxy brain.
Scored an 88-ball hundred and not much else besides, but - crucially - wound up the opposition at a key juncture with a textbook bit of needless preachy grandstanding in a press conference.
So endearingly old school that he rarely hits the ball off the square, never mind in the air. Often seems to be working at deliberate cross-purposes to the so-called "Bazball" agenda.
Got hit for six from his first ball on debut. Hit the first England six of the tour. Often got out trying to hit the ball for six. Oh yes, and he took quite a few wickets.
As he did in the very first Test under Stokes and McCullum, Leach injured himself in the line of duty and was not seen much from that point on.
Played the "greatest innings by an Englishman in the subcontinent" in Hyderabad, according to his captain. The rest of his series reminded us more of infinite monkey theorem.
Made an appearance as the Nighthawk, batting at No. 3 in Vizag and bowled nicely on several occasions without changing anything much. Loses several marks for not liking golf.
Can you do the so-called "Bazball" if you are injured/busy recording a podcast? No, it would seem.
A series of two halves. Was having an absolute shocker, epitomised by his reverse-scoop dismissal in Rajkot, before remembering he is the team's best batter and losing all the slap-happy credit he had built up.
Scored 48 runs from 53 balls faced for a strike rate of 90.56, thereby topping the standings for the series in the only metric that counts.
****
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick